


Breath Waker

by mitspeiler



Series: The Legend of Rose [1]
Category: Homestuck, Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, The Legend of Zelda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Chases, Courage, Crossover, Escapes, Fencing, Fighting, Gen, Giants, I'll try to stay awake, Miracles, Monsters, Now open to the public!, Revenge, The Homestuck name is good for like fifty language tags, The Legend of Rose AU, Torture, True Love, Wisdom, You Have Been Warned, fuck yeah, power, swash-buckling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-16 18:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 98,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitspeiler/pseuds/mitspeiler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein I transplant Homestuck characters into the setting of Wind Waker.  On Dave Strider's birthday, John's sister is kidnapped by a horrorterror, and the two join up with a band of pirates to get her back, setting sail for adventure across an endless ocean.  Can they face down the terror of the Great Sea, the dark lordling Caliborn?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sea Spray

This is but one of the legends of which the people speak...

Long ago, there existed a kingdom where a golden power lay hidden.

It was a prosperous land blessed with great wealth, majestic cities, and peace.

But one day a lordling of great evil found the golden power and took it for himself...

With its strength at his command, the lordling spread darkness across the kingdom.

But then, when all Hope had died, and the hour of Doom seemed at hand...

...a young boy clothed in red appeared as if from nowhere.

Wielding the blade of evil's bane, he sealed the dark one away and gave the land light.

This boy, who traveled through time to save the land, was known as the Knight of Time.

The boy's tale was passed down through generations until it became legend.

 

But then, a day came when a fell wind began to blow across the kingdom.

The great evil that all thought had been forever sealed away by the hero once again crept forth from the depths of the earth, eager to resume its dark designs.

The people believed that the Knight of Time would again come to save them.

...But the Knight did not appear.

Faced by an onslaught of evil, the people could do nothing but appeal to the gods.

In their last hour, as doom drew nigh, they left their future in the hands of fate.

What became of that kingdom...?

None remain who know.

 

The memory of the kingdom vanished, but its legend survived on the wind's breath.

On a certain island, it became customary to garb boys in red when they came of age.

Clothed in the red of rust and blood, they aspired to find heroic blades and cast down evil.

The elders wished only for the youths to know courage like the hero of legend...

 

            “John.  John, wake up.  John this is embarrassing.  John, don’t make me slap you!”  John Egbert persisted in sleeping. 

            Jade wondered how it was that her brother could just take a nap on such a frigid day in December with no protection against the cold but his standard blue outfit.  Blue shirt with a wavy pattern, a long blue hood, orange pants and sandals; not cold weather gear by any stretch of the imagination.  Furthermore, they were out on the observation deck, a wooden tower some three stories tall about sixty yards out into the water.  The pounding of the waves made the fragile structure shake, and the breeze brought salty spray with it.  Seagulls made their nest in the thatching, and the feathery assholes seemed to hate Jade.  Well before reaching the top of the ladder their cawing, keening, whatever, had become nigh unbearable to Jade’s sensitive ears; the long, pointy, appendages that stuck out from her thick mane of black hair were coated with soft white downy fur, a sign of some ancient lineage or other.  She thought they made her look like a dog.

            The building was loud, unstable, and as close to freezing as anything ever got this far south, yet here was John, napping as soundly as if he were some wealthy Windfall merchant in his plush four-poster who’d just counted all his rupees and hadn’t found anything smaller than a purple.  Jade wrapped her shawl tight against a sudden gust that was cold enough to make her gasp.  A little drool dribbled out of her brother’s mouth.  It was almost cute.  She slapped him.

            “Ow!  God!  Why?!”  He screamed, jumping to his feet and rubbing his face.

            Jade picked up his glasses and handed them to him with a smile.  “John!  Don’t you know what day it is?”

            “Tuesday,” he said, snapping his fingers.  He wasn’t going to miss a beat this time.

            Jade laughed at him.  “It’s Dave’s birthday you fuckass!”

            “Well that goes without saying,” John retorted, his equally canid ears lying flat on his scalp.  “I thought you were playing some mind-game.  Anyway, ‘fuckass’?  Have you been hanging out with the mailman again?  And of course I know that it’s Dave’s birthday.  Look what I got him,” he said, producing a polished brass telescope with a flourish.  He was very proud of his sleight-of-hand, and to his credit Jade couldn’t see how he could possibly have hidden it.

            “Your old telescope?”  She asked, with a raised eyebrow.

            “I completely refurbished it,” he said proudly.  “Here, take a look.”

            She took it in her hands, tentatively, trying to keep as much of the cold out as possible.  She hefted it, admired the craftsmanship, and finally held it up to a shining green eye, turning to look out over the island.

            Outset Island was a lump of stone rising from the ocean floor that had been split in two after untold centuries of wind and tide.  The western side was the bigger and the majority of the village, with its charming wood-framed wattle-and-daub houses and distinct peaked thatched roofs, was situated there along the single stretch of beach at the foot of the mountain.  At least, they called it a mountain; it was barely a plateau to be honest. The summit however was thickly forested and, according to some, swarming with fairies, and possibly monsters.

            A rope bridge connected it to the eastern pinnacle, the only one that could actually be climbed.  The rocky trails leading up to it were half-wild though, thick with wild pigs, and thus the bridge was poorly maintained and the forest poorly explored.  Jade longed to go up there someday.  She would brave any number of boars and the half-rotten bridge to catch herself a fairy.  Then she’d make a wish to be as far from their boring little island as possible.

            And suddenly her view was obstructed by an enormous blue eye and she shrieked, almost dropping the telescope.  John laughed at his own stupid prank and she smacked him again, though now that he was standing she had to reach up to do it.  It wasn’t any fair; they were twins, but he was growing so much faster than she was.  Well, he did have the benefit of training under Dave’s Bro, the town’s blacksmith and one-man-army.

            He cocked his ear westward and turned.  “Hey, Karkat’s freaking out about something,” he said, pointing to their home.  The postman, a surly troll with nubby horns the color of candy-corn and a pair of bloodred moth’s wings, was indeed freaking out over something, gaping at the sky.  Jade turned the telescope upwards just as John muttered an expletive and rushed for the ladder.  Jade nearly dropped it again when she saw what was in the sky.

 

            It was Dave Strider’s thirteenth birthday, and like with every birthday before, he felt pretty ‘meh’ about it.  There was no use, really, in celebrating birthdays.  It’s not like you’d accomplished anything worth all the attention you get on your birthday, it’s just a thing that happens.  Maybe it was meant to be a consolation for having been pulled into life from wherever it is spirits come from.  At least you got presents.

            Before dawn, Bro had woken him up and forced Dave into a sparring session.  He was sure that if anyone had been awake at the time, they would have found it glorious; not to toot his own horn or anything but Dave’s swordsmanship was the subject of songs and ballads (that he had composed himself for ironic enjoyment).  Dave had lost anyway, of course; he’d never be able to beat his brother.  The man is simply the best there is.  After that, the two had gone out in a canoe to catch breakfast.  In olden days, a boy’s coming of age ceremony had been marked by harpooning a gyorg, a monstrous shark with a stone ram for its face built for smashing canoes, to make a feast for the whole village.  They’d had to settle for a middling-sized sunfish for themselves.

            Wiping his mouth, Bro had said, without making much of a fuss out of it, just cool and relaxed as he always was, “hey, here’s your present,” and stabbed a sword into the table up to the hilt. 

            Dave whistled.  “Shit you almost scared me that time.  Not quite though.”  His voice was a lazy drawl, rarely changing cadence as if unpunctuated.  He pulled it out of the table, taking care to make the action appear effortless.  It was a broadsword with a circular crossguard and a long hilt, to switch easily from one to two-handed stances.  The steel was shiny and newly forged; Dave could see his face in it.  Thick, frost white hair, blood-red eyes, mouth that betrayed no expression. 

            He didn’t thank his brother, but he didn’t have to.  No one reads an introvert’s emotions better than an introvert.

            It was a cold, grey day, and the stiff breeze carried a salty sting in from the ever present ocean.  He took a moment to look at it.  The world seemed to go on forever.  Though he’d never admit it to anybody, it frightened him a little.  He and his brother had come from the north back when Dave was just a baby, and his brother loved to tell self-aggrandizing tales about their crossing.  The world was full of strange, terrible, wonderful things. 

            And he would have no part of it.

            Turning from the ocean, he headed over to the Egbert house.  The oldest woman on the island, Nana Egbert, was John and Jade’s grandmother and sole provider.  She would also be providing Dave with his ceremonial cloths.  She met him at the door; the old woman had a youthful smile.  “Hello Dave!” she said cheerfully before ushering him inside. 

            The Egbert house was small and comfortable, like most of the houses on the island.  The key difference from Dave’s own house is that it was decorated with family pictographs, cook books, and potted plants, rather than bristling with weapons and puppets.  “At long last, you have become a young man,” she said, presenting him with a bundle of clothing. 

            Dave looked at it.  “Do you mind?”

            “Not at all!”  She didn’t leave.  It became clear that she intended to watch him change.  He didn’t sigh, but he wanted to.

            As he worked his way into the Knight’s garb, Nana continued speaking.  “Once upon a time, it was customary for young boys to take up a sword to defeat their enemies.  Well, now we’re a peace-loving people and our swords were long since beaten into ploughshares, and even they had rusted away to nothing by the time my own Nana was a little girl.  Only the family shield on the wall of every home,” here she indicate the ancient ironwood shield, reinforced with a metal frame and decorated with red and silver enamel, with the little shrine of flowers and pictographs underneath, “serves as a reminder of our martial past—”

            She had finally noticed that Dave was now fully dressed and had belted on his new sword.  The old woman looked at him appraisingly.  “Is there a problem?”  He asked, with just a touch of hesitancy.

            The old woman laughed.  “Hoo hoo, no child!  Dark times have come before and may come again.  It’s good to be prepared.”  She took a moment to study him.  The Knight’s clothing consisted of a long maroon cape with a hood, a red shirt bearing some symbol that might have been a stylized sun, heavy black boots, serviceable red trousers, and sword-belt with a seashell buckle.  “Oh, you look so handsome!”  She said.  “Let me get the pictobox.  You know, you are practically family, Dave.”

            Dave was simply glad that he hadn’t been born in spring like John.  Come John’s next birthday, he’d have to wear a completely identical outfit, but in the subtropical heat.  As for now, Dave felt quite comfortable.  “Remember to come over tonight,” Nana continued, “I’m making your favorite red velvet cake—”

            “SWEET MERCIFUL SUFFERING FUCK!”  The mailman’s voice rang loud and clear through the thick walls.  Nana gave Dave a look, as if to warn him against imitating such language.  He gave her a look as if to say yes ma’am, and the two headed outside to investigate.  “Really Karkat, there is no need to ever resort to such—” To her credit, she did not partake in foul language when she saw the horrorterror screaming across the sky, but she did fall silent.

 

            John ran back towards his house as quickly as he could, with Jade following after, still holding the telescope.  He kept his eyes on the unnatural thing flying over the island; its deep green body looked almost human, but from the midsection down it split off into two long, reptilian tails that swished and flowed against each other as it flew, creating strange swirling patterns.  Its head was like that of a rooster, with a pearly white mane and brilliant crest, though its face and beak was obscured by a pale green mask of some kind, engraved with serpents.  And in its disturbingly human hand, the creature was holding something.  “It’s a girl!”  Jade shouted.

            “The monster?”  John asked.

            She smacked him.  “No!  It’s holding a girl!”  At that moment, something came whistling across the sky and struck the beast with a satisfying thwack across the face.  The monster let out a shrieking sound like a man screaming in rage filtered through the sound of a rooster’s crow, amplified until it was too painful to listen to and the twins covered their ears.  It dropped its burden and turned, only to be struck in the face again.  The projectile, a boulder, landed on the path in front of their house with a thud that the children felt as well as heard.

            Out at sea, a great black form crept ever closer to shore, and hurled another boulder.  “What the hell is that?”  John asked.

            “A ship, looks like,” the sudden intonation of the deep, calm voice startled John.  He turned to see his master in the metallurgic arts, Dave’s brother.  He was very tall and not particularly muscular for a blacksmith, which is to say that he was still probably the strongest man on the island.  His frost-white hair stuck out at exciting angles from underneath a flatcap, and his eyes were obscured by pointy sunglasses.

            “I knew that,” John muttered.  Bro cleared his throat.  “I knew that, sensei.”

            “That’s a pirate ship,” he continued in his usual soothing monotone.

            Excitedly, Jade asked, “How can you tell?”

            “I’ve seen it before.  Look at the figurehead,” he pointed.  The prow and stem of the ship seemed to have been taken over by a writhing black mass, like a monstrous squid with a hundred thorny vines for tentacles.  “That right there, is _the_ _Grimdark_.”

 

            Vriska Serket’s hair cascaded in the wind and she took a moment to enjoy it before seizing the wheel.  In her old red boots and fine blue overcoat, newly looted from a Labrynnian freighter, paired with her fearsome fanged grin and the wicked glint in her remaining eye, she looked every bit the pirate captain.

            “Rotating catapult five degrees,” cried artillerist Jake English from amidships.  “Should I load up another shot First Mate Serket?”

            Damn, that irked her.  “Oh, you can just call me captain for now,” she said sweetly.  “When we get Rose back, then I’ll be First Mate again.  Savvy?”

            He laughed.  “Very droll madam!” Then lifted a boulder onto the arm of the catapult.

            She growled.  “Mr. Slick,” Vriska shouted over her shoulder, “Mr. English needs a keelhauling!”

            “Spades Slick is taking a nap belowdecks, and left me with instructions to wake him should ‘any chump need stabbing’.  Now, please stop trying to subvert Rose’s authority, Vriska dear,” said Aranea.  Other than wearing her hair much shorter than Vriska’s, Aranea Serket was essentially the same in appearance; same height, same build, same grey skin, flushing slightly blue from the stinging salt on the frigid breeze, same mismatched horns resembling a stylized stinger and claw, and before Vriska’s first arrest they’d had the same left eye.  Of course, the two couldn’t be farther in personality.  Where Vriska was ambitious, manipulative and violent, Aranea was humble, cooperative, and generally peaceful. 

            Generally.  They wouldn’t let a real pacifist on a pirate crew, of course.  When Vriska had been arrested on Windfall, Aranea had broken in, murdered the guards, and burned down half the prison to rescue her…sister.  Trolls didn’t really have siblings, per se, but the Serkets had adopted the human term.  Anyway, it had been too late to save Vriska’s wings from getting clipped, and they’d blinded her wonderful left eye with its seven pupils.  It was a very wretched pair of trolls who were first taken aboard _the Grimdark_ and thrown upon Rose’s mercy.

            “I’m not trying to subvert any such thing,” said Vriska.  “Aren’t you supposed to be researching this monster?”

            Aranea gave her a look.  “I am an _empath_ , I know how you’re feeling at any given moment.  And so are you, so stop playing games with me.  The only reason you didn’t mutiny as soon as that thing snatched her up is because the rest of the crew is loyal to her.  You’re trying to shift Jake’s allegiance.  And as to the research,” she brandished a heavy red volume, “I already did it,” Aranea said, proudly.  She set the book on the wheel and showed Vriska the entry she’d found, accompanied by a rather detailed illustration.  “You’ll notice it’s missing its mask.  I’m unsure as to the significance.”  Reading aloud, she said, “Abraxas is a prehistoric deity of tremendous power.  Believed to be half-diabolic and half-divine, ancient cultures perceived it as being beyond good and evil altogether and worshiped it as the god of cosmic balance.  It is mentioned in _the_ _Hylian Edda_ in line 390 of book six; ‘In his house below the sea / Dread Abrasax‘ _sic,_ ’lies dreaming’—”

            “If you would kindly tell me how to kill it,” Vriska interrupted with a blasé attitude.

            “Er,” said Aranea, fiddling with her dress collar, “did you not hear the part where it’s a god?”

            Vriska blew a raspberry.  “English!  Fire that damn thing already!”

            He squinted his green eyes.  “Still calculating distance madam First—”

            “Just do it!”  Vriska roared.  He did it.  The stone flew true and struck the beast full in the face.  Stunned, it dropped Rose onto the mountaintop below and turned to face _the Grimdark_ , unleashing its obscene shriek.

            “Oh dear,” said Jake.

            Irritated, Vriska bellowed, “What now!?”

            Hand on mouth, Aranea said “He’s clearly upset that our captain has fallen to her certain death!”

            “Actually, Ms. Serket,” he said, with a nervous smile, “The distance Rose fell is quite survivable, especially since she appears to be in a prone position and therefore a relaxed state.  I’m more concerned by the fact that the monster’s flight appears to be completely unaffected by windspeed.”

            Vriska squinted.  “Huh?”

            “If we try to run now,” he explained, “we’ll not be able to escape.”

            Vriska sneered.  “Who said anything about running?”  Drawing her cutlass, a heavy blade of blued steel with a wicked notch near the end, she said, “Everyone to battle-stations!  Aranea, wake up Slick and tell him to get his murderin’ hat on!”  The crew let out a loud cheer.  As Aranea turned to leave, Vriska whispered, “and once you’ve done that, kip on over to that island and see if the captain’s still alive.”

            Stunned, Aranea looked at her sister.  “You don’t think you can beat it, do you?”  Vriska’s face betrayed no expression other than confident determination, but Aranea could already tell it was true.

            Nonetheless, Vriska laughed jovially and said, “Remember, I’ve got all the luck,” and with just a little sting of telepathy, convinced Aranea to leave.  Immdeiately.

 

            “Hey y’all notice the flying horrorterror getting into a shouting match with a pirate ship,” Dave asked as he joined his brother and best friends on the beach.  “It’s pretty cool so far.  Taking bets?”

            “Dave,” Bro said, sounding grim.  “The monster dropped what he was carrying.  A girl.”

            He whistled.  “Damn.  Sure sucks to be her.  Where’d she land so we can go bury her corpse—”

            “She probably survived,” Bro interrupted.  “She landed in the fairy forest.  I want you to go find her.”

            Dave mouthed an expletive.  “Don’t be such a girl,” Bro warned.  “It’s tradition.  You’re supposed to get the Knight’s clothes and a sword so you can go out and prove you’re a man now.  There’s no point in just blindly following tradition without understanding the purpose behind it.”

            Dave groaned.  “Damn why’d this broad have to get kidnapped on my birthday?”

            Bro smirked.  “I was gonna make you do something stupid and reckless anyway.  This way it at least has a purpose other than being badass.  Now draw your sword.”

            Dave complied and it slid free with a satisfying _*snikt*_.  Bro snatched it out of his hands.  “Kneel.”  Dave did so.  Bro held the sword over his head.  “Do you vow to protect the weak and defenseless?”

            Dave looked up.  “Bro, what are—?”

            Bro kicked sand into his brother’s face.  Dave spat and coughed, and bit back a curse.

            “Do you vow?”  Bro repeated.

            “Yes okay?”  Dave snapped.

            “Will you be without fear in the face of your enemies?”  He continued.

            “No, seriously, what—?”  Bro kicked more sand into his face and his friends laughed.  “Yes!”

            “Will you be brave and upright so that the Goddesses may love thee?”  His voice was changing, becoming regal and commanding instead of its usual low, uncaring tone.

            Stunned at the change, Dave breathed out a “yes.”

            “Will you safeguard the helpless and do no wrong?”  He intoned.

            Quietly, Dave answered, “yes.”

            “That is your oath,” said Bro, tapping both of Dave’s shoulders with the blade.  Helping him to his feet, he suddenly slapped Dave across the face.  “And that’s so you remember it,” he said, voice returning to normal.  “Go rescue that girl and be back by lunch.”  Dave ran off toward the eastern pinnacle, and was that a new spring in his step?  Was his bearing just a bit more noble?

            “I want to go with him, sensei,” John said.  Bro studied him over his sunglasses, amber eyes penetrating into blue.  John looked down.

            “You’re not old enough to carry a sword,” he said, and John’s ears drooped.  “Even if you were, you couldn’t swing one to save your life.  Probably the worst fencer I’ve ever taught.  You’ll make a great smith though, when you’re old enough to build some real muscle.”  Bro produced a stout hammer with a twenty pound head and tossed it towards him.  “Here, go on; make sure he doesn’t get killed.”

            Grinning fiercely, white ears perking completely upright, John ran after his friend.  Bro turned to go home, and saw Jade striding along the beach with a harpoon taller than she was leaning against her shoulder.  “Where are you off to?”  He asked.

            “East,” she said nonchalantly.  Her ears were at a neutral angle and betrayed nothing.  “I’m gonna hunt some wild pigs.”

            “You’re _not_ going to help Dave and your bother?”  He said, hand on his chin.

            Jade shook her head.  “You know how Dave likes pork.  We’re having the dinner at our house, so I should provide the main course. Naturally.”

            “Naturally,” said Bro, unconvinced.  “I know I can’t control you.  Go help them, if you want.”

            She shrugged.  Then she took off running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I lied, and I’m sorry. I’m a capricious bastard, but as long as I keep churning out content y’all are happy, right? ….Right? *cries*  
> Wind Waker is my favorite Zelda game. Evar! I love it so much it makes me want to cry T_T. I once got into a knife-fight with a dude who sent an overly critical letter to Nintendo Power. In my mind.  
> It’s not without its flaws though. Don’t get me wrong, anyone who dislikes it is either a liar or a communist, but it’s too damn short and there’s that long ass bit at the end with no proper dungeons. They could have thrown in a few, right? The ghost ship was a total missed opportunity! I’ll try to ‘fix’ this, make it into something readable.  
> My usual readers may be thinking, “mitspeiler, why are you describing everybody and explaining what trolls are?” Well sillies, this is my first crossover with something someone else might have actually seen, unlike Thief of Prospit which is about goddamn silent movies. I’m hoping that people who are just fans of Zelda will read this and become interested in Homestuck, and we can’t have them going in thinking that the lovely Misses Serket are generic fantasy trolls. As to why they have wings, well, all will be revealed. Can’t have spoilers for Wind Waker in the notes now can we?  
> And due to Homestuck having a cast in the hundreds, I’ll be considering requests for party members, though they won’t be implemented for a while due to story reasons. About bloody time there was a Zelda RPG.


	2. Upwelling

            Atop the eastern pinnacle was a small triangular meadow an acre wide, broken only by a single tree and a few boulders of glassy black volcanic rock.  Tiny winter flowers were in bloom, bringing splashes of blue and red to the prickly brown grass.  The ground underneath was rich and black; the famously fertile black soil of Outset had probably been treated by some ancient culture, judging from the abundance of charcoal and old rupees one could find so easily in it.  “Best view on the island,” said Dave as the group stopped to catch their breath.  He and Jade stood side-by-side almost on the precipice, looking out across the waters.  The choppy waves of the Great Sea spread out below them like an endless sheet of beaten iron, its thousand-thousand islands mere blips of black on the horizon.  The clouds above, unbroken by the slightest sunbeam or streak of blue, were like a perfect dome of silver.

            “You’ve never been up here,” Jade accused, ruining the moment.  “The path was completely overgrown!  You were cutting down saplings taller than I was!”

            “Sure have,” Dave countered, arms folded across his chest.  “It’s just that I always climb up here.  Hop from rock to rock like a majestic mountain goat.  But I knew you guys couldn’t manage it so we took the path.”

            “I could so have made the climb,” said Jade, stamping her foot.

            “No you couldn’t have,” said John, making his presence known from his vantage atop one of the boulders.  Jade sometimes forgot that his hearing was as good as hers was.

            “No, I couldn’t have,” she admitted.

            “Besides,” Dave continued as if she hadn’t said anything at all, “most things are taller than you are.”

            “I’m going to push you off the cliff into the ocean,” she said sweetly.  “John will back me up.  No one will ever know.”

            John was looking in the other direction, as he always did when his sister and best friend were black-flirting.  This time however, it wasn’t from third-wheel discomfort.  Instead, through his telescope he was watching _the Grimdark_ in its battle against the monster.  It was too close for them to rely on the catapult anymore; they had produced a few light cannon and were pelting the thing with grapeshot.  The monster, however, was too fast for them and deftly avoided their attacks.  When it got too close however, they would just loose a barrage of arrows, clearly too weak to kill it, but painful enough to make the thing back off.  But they’d run out of arrows eventually.  “We should go, guys,” he called, ears lying back warily.  “Both of them want that girl, and we should protect her as well as we can.”  He jumped down to the ground and walked to them determinedly. 

            “What if she’s with the pirates?”  Jade asked.  “It could happen!”

            John gave her an unamused look.  “Jade, that is silly.  She’s clearly in danger from both of them.  Why would we even think anything else ever?”  Turning to Dave; “before I forget,” he said, handing Dave the telescope, “happy birthday!”

            Dave whistled.  “One of your treasured heirlooms?  Don’t I feel special.”  He put it up to his eye.  “What were you looking at just now?  Oh,” he said, spying the monster locked in combat with the pirates.  “You’re right, we should go.”

            “Wait,” said Jade, fishing for something in her bag.  “Here’s my present,” she said, handing it over.  A pair of silver-framed, horn-rimmed sunglasses.  “I traded Beedle all my sea-shells for it,” she said proudly.

            “That’s a lot of fucking sea-shells,” John said, helpfully.

            “Apparently they belonged to the hero Ben Stiller,” Jade said.  “I’m not sure I believe him, but they’re still really cool!  …Right?”  They both looked at Dave expectantly.

            Without further ado, he flipped the shades onto his face, where some stray beam of light struck the left lens with an almost audible gleam. 

            “Soooo cool,” Jade giggled.

            “Wait, they might have touched that guy’s weird, kinda gaunt face?” asked John.  “You didn’t tell me that!”

            Dave strode back towards the path.  “They’re so cool I’ll never take them off.  Even to sleep.”  He didn’t thank his friends.  He didn’t have to; they both knew he was a big soft ball of fluff on the inside.

 

            The bridge was a simple one made of ancient driftwood and chains that seemed to have once been very fine, until countless years of ocean spray had rusted them into a creaky horror-show that left a bloody colored mess on the children’s hands as they walked across.  Hundreds of feet high, buffeted by high wind, it spanned the narrowest point between the two halves of the island.  Far below, a mass of jagged rocks stretch upwards like reaching fingers.  At low tide, it became an expanse of ever-changing tide-pools that you could walk across with ease and explore at leisure.  Now, it was like the swirling maw of Charybdis.  They crossed without incident.

            It was quiet in the fairy forest, and surprisingly warm, with a shelf of rock all around keeping out the wind.  No one had ever come here to harvest wood, so the ground was thick with growth and ancient trees that had toppled on their own.  The canopy was so thickly interwoven that the sky was almost hidden, and the place was suffused with a shadowless, pale green light.  It was a sleepy sort of place, a place where things never really happened.  Until now.  “Not even one wild pig,” Jade mumbled.  “I thought rescuing maidens would be more exciting.”

            Dave clicked his tongue.  “I almost prefer it this way.  Just don’t tell Bro how boring this was or he’ll make me go out and fight a gyorg with a knife in my teeth or something.”

            “Shit,” said John, “I’d like to see that!”  And so, he led his friends into the woods.  They talked and joked like this for over an hour, occasionally calling out.  “Hey!  Girl!  We’re here to save you or whatever,” Dave shouted, without enthusiasm.

            “We’re friendly!”  Jade shouted through cupped hands, awkwardly shouldering her harpoon.  “We have cake!  Well, we will tonight!  Hey, wanna come over for dinner?!  I’ll set you up with John!”

            John jumped.  “What?” he snapped, ears lying back in hostility.

            Hands on her hips, Jade said, with a playful sneer, “The only girl your age on the island is me John!  How else are we gonna get you married off?  We’d have to send away for some city girl who’d sneer down her nose at us poor inbred country-folk even though she was probably giving it away on the street corner the week before—” 

            “Okay, you can no longer hang out with Karkat,” John said, pointing.  “It’s forbidden!  I forbid you!”

Ignoring him, Jade continued with a look of self-satisfaction, “—and now a girl falls out of the sky, practically right in your lap!  It’s destiny John—”

            He snatched her glasses and ran off, laughing.  Jade brandished her harpoon threateningly and charged after him.  “Glass is expensive you fuckass!”  Dave sighed and walked in her wake, muttering about energetic people.

            “You keep using that word,” John shouted over his shoulder.  “I do not think it means what you think it mea—”

            He smacked into something hard and fleshy and fell on his ass.  “Shit.”  A thick-bodied Bokoblin loomed over him, dressed in rags and tanned pigskin, a gnarled staff in his little, rat-like hand.  The blue-skinned creature had the mouth of a frog but with a lower jaw that could crunch through bone, set with heavy tusks that would be the envy of any boar.  Likewise it had the snout of a pig and ears like a bat’s, and a single horn on its spotty forehead unlike any other animal.  He opened his mouth and licked his snout with a tongue of the most vibrant magenta, and made a sound from deep in the back of his throat like a crow mating with a toad, hefted his stick—

            And promptly dropped it because of the six-foot harpoon now embedded in his shoulder.  Dave ran in, almost too quick to be seen, and launched the Bokoblin into the air with a hefty stroke of his sword.  It landed a few feet away, leaking luminescent pink, and twitched wildly until it suddenly stopped.  “Still wishing for wild pigs, Jade?”  Dave asked. 

            Wordlessly, John’s sister approached him and held out her hand.  He took it.  “No, I want my glasses!”

            “Help me up first!”  While the two squabbled, Dave went over to the monster and pulled out the harpoon. As he did so, its vest opened up, revealing an exquisite necklace shaped like a butterfly.  Dave clicked his tongue, and slipped it into his pocket.  The Bokoblin wouldn’t need it anymore.

            “—I’m farsighted,” said Jade.

            “No, you thought he was me,” said John.

            “I see the girl,” said Dave, pointing up into the canopy.  The siblings turned to gawk.

            Hanging from a branch by her bright pink sash, she appeared to have passed out.  At first John thought he was looking at a ghost.  Her short hair was as white as bone, and stood in stark contrast to her skin, which had been completely and carefully covered by war-paint so dark a grey it was nearly black.  Her dress was a simple, heavy black gown, with something that may have been either a scowling skull or a heavily stylized sea-monster sewn onto the front.  The only color on her was the sash, in which were sheathed a pair of daggers with skulls for pommels.

            “Jade,” said Dave, “poke her with your harpoon, see if you can’t get her down.”

            “Idiot,” she said, “it’s like twenty feet high, I can’t reach.  And she’ll never want to marry John if his sister perforates her.  You need to think about these kinds of things.”  As they argued, John’s ears twitched, detecting a vaguely rhythmic sound.  No, it was two sounds coming from opposite directions.  Footsteps?  He could see the rock walls on either side of the wood, so probably not.  Also, they were too far and coming from—

            Wing-beats, muffled by the thick canopy.  There was a cry like a tortured goat, and a pair of kargarocs dropped through it, suddenly audible, carrying a pair of Bokoblins nearly identical to the first.  They were like enormous vultures, but endowed with fabulous colors; deep blue bodies, white-tipped wings, maroon heads and necks, feathered unlike their smaller cousins, and their legendary tails, long like a mammal’s and covered in green and gold quills.  One of them directed its hateful, intelligent gaze at John and bellowed, a stuttering, mammalian sound, and then both of them dropped their cargoes and flew off into the sky.

            “We should use some kind of unison attack,” said John, as the Bokoblins advanced, machetes drawn.

            “You mean rush them all at once?” asked Dave.  “I like it.”

            Jade laughed.  “He means, like, you throw me up into the air and he jumps up and smacks me with his hammer and somehow I’m not hurt and I hurdle at the enemy like a cannonball, then I throw my harpoon in midair in _slow motion_ and it breaks the sound barrier and shatters rocks and burns down the whole forest!  And then they get back up because it only does five damage each.”

            “John,” said Dave, taking on a paternal air, “You’re not allowed to play those role-playing games anymore.  They rot your brain.”

            “Fuck you guys,” said John, flushing, “Let’s just rush them!”  And he charged at the nearest Bokoblin.  It grunted in surprise, presumably used to having boys John’s age be terrified of him, and just barely managed to bring up its machete as John brought the hammer down. 

            The next swing dented the blade.  The third swing pushed back the Bokoblin, and it was a testament to its strength that it didn’t drop the weapon from the furious ringing that must have been be working its way up its arm.  It was a testament to John’s strength that he swung a twenty pound hammer one-handed four times in such quick succession that his opponent could do nothing but hold.  The fourth blow snapped the machete in two, and the Bokoblin jumped back at the last second, narrowly avoiding a similar fate.  John, having overextended himself, just barely managed to turn as it lunged at his face with an open-handed blow, leaving three deep furrows in his cheek.

            The monster’s momentum kept it going, and John raised his knee into its stomach, bending the creature over his leg.  With both hands, John swung the hammer at its back, and left it dead with a sickening crunch.  He wiped away the blood with his sleeve and turned just in time to see Dave and Jade pin their Bokoblin to the ground with a simultaneous strike of their weapons.  It shrieked, then coughed out a gob of its magenta lifeblood, and lay still. 

            Dave looked over at John.  “Damn, it’s Egbert the Barbarian breaking fools over his knee like he was their goddamn daddy!  Trying to make up for screwing up the first one huh?  Well it worked.”  He flicked something at John with a crystalline chime and he snatched it out of the air without thinking.  A red rupee of surprising purity, quartz crystals carved into hexagons about the size of a thumb.  “Money?”

            “Your share of the spoils bro.”  Dave announced.

            “You’re looting the corpses?”  John asked with a lopsided grin.  “Who’s been playing too many RPGs?”

            “You don’t want it?  Then just give it here,” Dave said, holding out his hand.  John put the rupee away.  The sound of wood groaning, then splintering, tortured his sensitive ears, and Jade shouted, “Hurry John she’s falling!  Catch her or she’ll _die_!”  Without a word John dropped his hammer and ran toward the tree, just managing to catch the falling girl.

            From up close, she wasn’t really that bad looking.  She had a delicate, aristocratic face, long curly eyelashes, nice full lips, and, John noticed with a start, long furry ears like he and Jade and Nana did.  He’d thought they were the only ones.  Her eyes fluttered open and he almost made a fool of himself by gasping at the brilliant lilac color but caught hims—

            “Drop me at once,” she said, holding, holding a thick black needle under John’s chin; a dribble of blood slid down it to the skull-shaped pommel.  Huh.  Guess it wasn’t a dagger after all.  “Or I will slide this up through your soft pallet and into your brain.  Then I will unleash a burst of magical energy that will likely leave you headless and my dress quite ruined.” 

            John dropped her unceremoniously.  “No way to treat your rescuers,” he said, stepping back to a safe distance.

            She stood up and looked around, needle held between her fingers like a pencil.  The girl was the same height as John, with a slender build and a commanding presence.  Her expression was curious, but not surprised.  She projected an air of eminence, as if she had more of a right to be here in the fairy forest than did these children who’d lived near it their entire lives.  It was not arrogance, John decided, but something more like the supposed divine right of kings.  If there had still been kings. 

            “I suppose you’ll want a reward,” she said, looking at his friends as if just noticing them.  “Very well, we won’t raze your village to its foundations.”  There was a stunned silence as it became apparent to the group that they may have miscalculated some things. 

            Then Jade laughed.  She would treat with kings, if there were still kings, based only on how well she liked them.  “See you guys?  She really is a pirate!”  She strode forward and proffered her hand with a big grin.  “I’m Jade Egbert!  This is my brother John and our friend Dave Strider.  What’s your name, Ms. Pirate?”

            Hesitantly, she said, “Captain Rose Lalonde, of _the Grimdark,_ ” and took Jade’s hand, allowing the other girl to shake.  The two made an interesting pair, almost a complete inversion.  “And that was just a joke.  I wouldn’t destroy such a small village, but one does have a reputation to maintain,” she said with a very small smile.  “I need to at least threaten.”

            Jade turned to John and winked.  ‘She’s a _captain_ John!  We’re moving up in the world.”

            “A pirate with a snarky sense of humor,” said Dave, “my life is now complete.”

            “I am still a pirate, Mr. Strider,” said Rose, warningly, “and will not hesitate to decapitate you.”  Turning to John, she said, “Mr. Egbert, I trust you are not seriously injured?”

            John rubbed his chin.  He was no longer bleeding.  “Good,” said Rose, “Now how do we leave?”

 

            Just as John, in the lead, set foot on the bridge, a pretty troll with blue wings swept down from the sky and landed behind him.  “Captain,” said Aranea, kneeling, “Abraxas has tired from fighting.”

            “Excellent,” said Rose.  “We shall pursue the beast, and I will slay him, and place his mask on the mainmast for all to see that even the gods must fear _the Grimdark_.”  Jade turned to John and mouthed ‘badass’, with a look of pure exuberance.

            Aranea jumped to her feet and shook her head violently.  “You don’t understand Captain!  He’s not fatigued, he’s _bored_.  He lost interest in us and he’s heading—” She turned northward; the ship was visible, close enough to see the monstrous figurehead that took up most of her prow, but the green and white abomination was nowhere to be seen.  “Oh sweet Nayru where is he?!” Aranea shouted.

            Abraxas’ horrid crowing sounded from somewhere entirely too close.  John turned and found himself staring into the monster’s burning yellow eyes, each bigger than his head.  Dave immediately leapt into action, lunging for his left eye with his sword, and was immediately slapped away, smacking into the stony cliff with a loud _*thwack*_.  With that same green hand, gnarled and scarred, with ragged green claws, he reached for Rose, who already had both needles drawn and crackling with magical energy—

            Only to be shoved aside by Jade.  Those enormous green fingers closed tightly around her, and with its free hand the monster launched itself into the sky, the force of his departure shattering the bridge chains and sending John plummeting to his doom.  He briefly thought the last thing he would ever hear was the wind whistling in his ears, carrying his sister’s voice as she called for him.

            He was wrong.  He looked up, and saw Rose the pirate Captain gripping his hand with a look of grim determination on her face.  “By Din you weigh a ton,” she shouted through clenched teeth, “but I am not going to let you go.”  And then there was a sense of shifting and a hideous crack like a bomb going off in a glass house, and the ground Rose was laying on slid forward and flipped them both out into the open air.

 

            Falling to his certain death for the second time today, Rose still clinging to his hand, he felt his ears twitch to one side as they filled with yet another unknown noise, an almost liquid sound cutting through the air.  He noticed Rose’s ears doing the same, and for the first time in his life noticed the oddness of that jerking motion applied to a human being; it was like they had a mind of their own.  Some of her makeup had rubbed off around her jaw, and he saw that her natural skin color was a nearly translucent white.  Her eyes were wide with terror, filled to the brim with that alien color, and John thought it a treat, to have seen what no one else had likely ever seen; the dread pirate Rose Lalonde without her queenly mask.

            All of this happened in an instant, the space of time it takes to jump.  Then something hard took John in the side and he saw Rose’s head jerk hard against—

            The mailman’s chest.  “Are you an angel,” John muttered, half-joking.  The sound had been Karkat, gliding through the air on his silent moth-wings as quickly as he possibly could.  He now held both children, one in each arm, and looked upwards stoically.  As he reached the peak of his flight, he extended his brilliant red wings and began to descend in a lazy spiral.  “Yes Egbert, I’m an angel.  Now stay in school and eat your vegetables or I’ll fucking drop you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thought about ending it at the cliff, but I already did the ‘falling off cliff’ ending in Azure Conspiracies and it was barely even cute once.  
> My fics all have recurring motifs. In Azure Conspiracies its affection and its various forms, despite being about a school. The Thief of Prospit’s motif is color, despite not having a magic system based on it like AC. Trollish Layer’s motif is thought, despite not being about any damn thing. None of these were conscious decisions, it just sort of happened, and it doesn’t mean anything. The motif for this fic appears to be Princess Bride quotes. See?  
> In my headcanons, Jade is actually the tallest of the original kids. I made her more petite in this story for some reason, maybe to match up with Aryll more.  
> Abraxas’ design is based on actual Gnostic images of worship I found. And why shouldn’t he look different from the browser logo? Echidna looks nothing like hers. That said, his behavior at the end there was lifted right off the Songbird from Bioshock Infinite. Now there’s an idea; Biostuck Infinite Double-Reacharound. So boss.  
> And John’s RPGs are of course pen-and-paper ones. Of course.


	3. Riding the Breeze

            In the village center, Nana and Bro were busily interrogating Rose, who was already taking command of the situation.  She’d sent Aranea off to _the Grimdark_ to organize a landing party, and then come back and get Dave down from the cliff.  John did not have time to waste on their bullshit however, and had slunk off toward the beach.  Karkat found him at the dock.

            “Look, John,” Karkat said, grabbing hold of his shoulder, “there’s nothing you can do—”

            “Sure there is!” he shouted, breaking free of the mailman’s grasp.  “I’m going to paddle this fucking canoe out and follow them!”  John shoved the dainty blue and purple Outset canoe into the water, where it was promptly capsized by an incoming wave.  He screamed and threw a rock at it, cracking the hull.  “Cheap piece of shit!”

            Karkat slapped his forehead.  “First off, if the stupid thing couldn’t survive you, how the Hell is it going to survive the Great Sea?  Second, how the Hell are you going to catch up to something that flies _by paddling_?  Third, do you even know where they went?  They are long gone!  Fourth, if by some miracle you managed to paddle a canoe across the entire Great Sea and somehow managed to find that thing, HOW IN THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO GET JADE BACK FROM IT?  ARE YOU GOING TO KILL IT WITH YOUR FUCKING PURE HEART?”

            Aranea alit behind him, carrying Dave.  “Oh, Karkat!  Hello,” she said.

            Surprised, he greeted her confusedly.  “Hey.  Still alive I see.”

            “You two know each other?” Dave asked.

            “Why are you surprised to see that she’s alive?” John asked, temporarily distracted from the tragic sinking of his canoe in five feet of water.

            “All the trolls know each other,” Karkat said with a dismissive gesture.  “Dragon Roost is only a little bigger than this island.  Because of that, whenever someone commits a serious crime we just outlaw them, so any outsiders can kill them with impunity, and since trolls tend to make enemies….”  He made a conclusive gesture.  There was an awkward silence.  “Good job, by the way.  On not getting murdered to death.”

            “Oh, you know me,” she said with a coy expression, “people don’t want to kill me, they just want me to shut up.  I remember this one time on Great Fish Island—what’s that boy doing?”  John was walking into the ocean with a determined expression, already up to his chest in the frigid water and thoroughly soaked.

            “GODDAMN IT JOHN!” Karkat bellowed, gliding after him and dragging him back to the shore.  “YOUR GRANDMOTHER IS GOING TO CARVE MY BLOOD-PUSHER OUT WITH A RUSTY SPOON IF I LET YOU WANDER OFF AND COMMIT SUICIDE BY ANCIENT EVIL!”

            “Let me go!” John shouted, struggling against the troll, “I have to do something!”

            Dave, having remained silent for the entire conversation due to his probably bruised ribs and general fatigue, decided to finally intervene.  He gave John a good solid smack upside the head, just like Bro would.  “Man the fuck up.  I mean yeah we have to do something but we should be cool and think about it first.  Karkat just gave you a whole bunch of very good reasons you can’t just rush off alone.”

            “Exactly,” Karkat said, “Dave is clearly your intellectual superior and you should listen to him more often,” He cracked his knuckles.  “But what you should both be doing is listening to _her_.  Aranea,” she jumped at the sudden mention of her name, “Go get your captain,” he said, pointing her in the right direction.  “We’re about to engage in a massive communal infodump.”

            With an ecstatic grin, she saluted and flew off, returning on foot within minutes with everyone else in tow.  They arranged themselves in a circle around her.  “From what I can gather,” she began, adjusting her glasses with a smart, concise gesture, “Abraxas, the monster that we fought today, is a chthonic deity from ancient times, resurrected by means as yet unknown.  He has been terrorizing the Great Sea and outlying regions for some months now, kidnapping young girls of Hylian lineage—”

            “That means people with the furry ear-dealies for all you rubes,” said Karkat, holding his fingers up to his ears as if to mimic the trait.

            Aranea cleared her throat.  “Yes, quite.  It’s actually a symbol placed by the Creatrices themselves marking people as the legitimate inheritors of a semi-divine lineage rumored to have once held dominion over the whole of the Earth, but ‘ear-dealies’ is also an appropriate term, thank you,” she said with a roll of her eyes.  “Regardless, Abraxas’ nest is rumored to be far to the north, in a place that has since become colloquially known as the Forsaken Fortress.  This location has a rich history and is rumored to be one of the last and best preserved remnants of the old Hylian kingdo—”

            “Thank you Aranea,” Rose said authoritatively; she knew how the troll got when she had a subject.  “Essentially, the fortress is an ancient castle on a rock that was once home to a rather infamous gang of privateers known as the Felt Mob, mercenaries employed by the last duke of Windfall.  For all we know, they are still there, and may even be the ones controlling Abraxas for all I know, but kidnapping has never been their priority.”  Rose seemed to be steeling herself.  “The girls brought to the fortress are simply never seen again.  There are no demands, and they are not disappearing in sufficient numbers for it to be slavery.  I’m sorry John, but your sister is most likely dead, or as good as.”

            Almost without realizing it, John’s hand fell to the hammer in his belt.  He wanted to scream and rage like the impotent child he was, especially at Rose.  If _she_ had never shown up then—

            But there was no point in it.  John could never bring his anger above a simmer, no matter how much he _wanted_ to.  He dropped his hand from the hammer and sighed.  Besides, she was as much a victim as Jade.  It was the fault of that thing, Abraxas, and whoever had summoned him.  The Felt Mob?  Whoever it was, they would rue the day they forced their way into his life.  Quietly, he said, “if she’s most likely dead, then there’s a small chance she’s alive.  I’m going.”  He turned to leave.

            “Now here I thought you were the more mature one, but I guess I was wrong,” said Dave’s brother, eyes glinting dangerously over his sunglasses.  “You’re still just a dumb kid.  Going on a quest when you have no idea of how to even get there, honestly.”  He rounded on Rose.  “And you.  You need to take some responsibility young lady.”

            She glared up at the man, a full head and shoulders taller than she, strong enough to snap her in two, as if she were the dangerous one.  Their eyes met and John was surprised he didn’t see something like a flash of light as these two titanic personalities clashed in a battle of wills.

            Rose looked down first.  “You are correct.  Our presence in the region directly resulted in Abraxas’ arrival on the island.”

            John interrupted.  “It’s really not your fault—”

            “Nonetheless,” she said sharply, “He was reaching for me and Jade took my place.  I would be remiss in not helping you recover her.”  She straightened.  “Pack your things, I’m taking you to the Forsaken Fortress.”

            ‘I’m going too,” Dave announced, to John’s surprise.  Putting his hand on his shoulder, Dave said, “Don’t look at me like that.  You guys are my best fucking friends.  Besides,” he straightened his sunglasses and there was once again an uncanny gleam. “Today’s heroic labor was total bullshit.  I want a do-over.  Maybe we’ll have a unison attack.”

            Bro clicked his tongue and flashed a cocky grin.  “It’s a good thing you volunteered because I was about to send you off for those same exact reasons.”

            Dave cocked an eyebrow.  “Bro why do you think I volunteered?  I mean c’mon I do learn things.”

            Nana let out a pained ‘hoo hoo’, and said, “Now here I thought you did it because you and Jade are the cutest couple on the island.”

            Bro nodded with a grunt.  “That’s probably it.  He pretends he’s good with women, but that girl’s the only one for him, I can tell.”  As Bro proceeded to tease Dave relentlessly, Nana beckoned John over.

            “Come with me, John,” she said, tears in her eyes, “we’re going home.”

            John shook his head.  ‘Didn’t you hear—?”

            “I heard quite well young man, but for once will you shut your mouth and do as you’re told?”  Her sharp tone stunned him into silence.  Recovering a trace of her warmth, she said, “we won’t be long, child.  Just come along.”  They took the brief stroll up to their house.  There was a low fence to keep out the wild pigs, a garden of straight, well-tended saplings and pink flowers, and a veranda looking out over the ocean.  No matter what she told him, John was determined to leave it behind today.  The thought made his eyes sting.

            Once inside, she headed over to the family shield, took it down, and gave it to him.  “The Triforce,” she said, indicating the Triangle of Triangles, “to guide you.”  She slid her long, pale finger toward the heraldic beast underneath, like an owl with the head of a lion and the horns of a goat.  “And a demon to protect you.  That’s what my family always used to say about this thing.  Who knows if that’s what the shield-makers were thinking, but that’s what it means now.”  She sighed a deep, hollow sigh.  Her ears, already dropping with age, seemed to have lost all structural integrity and were dangling lifelessly.  “I always knew this day would come, but I never imagined it would hurt so much.”  She hugged him.  “Go and bring back our poor Jade,” she muttered into his ear.  “Or bear an old woman’s curse your whole life long!”

            John jumped. “Huh?!”

            “Hoohoohoo!”

 

            When they emerged, John carried not only the family shield strapped to his back, but also two heavy packfuls of clothing and baked goods, one for himself and one for Dave.  A boat had pulled into the docks in the intervening time, releasing a striking young woman currently having a heated argument with Karkat, who was probably Aranea’s ‘sister’, and a tall, surly looking black Carapacian, with a thick white scar marring his chitinous skin right down his right eye, and a wicked looking hook where his hand and part of his forearm should have been.  He was sitting on an old looking wooden chest, enameled blue and gilded with brass.  “Okay, I’m ready,” John said to Rose.

            “Excellent,” she said.  “First Mate, say goodbye to your friend and meet our other new passenger, John Egbert.”  The young woman gave him a vicious grin.  He could help but grin back.  “My First Mate is as vicious a cutthroat as you will ever find on the Great Sea,” Rose warned.

            “Cool,” said John.

            “I like him,” said Vriska.  “He knows what’s what.”

            “Mr. Slick, open the chest,” Rose snapped.  The Carapacian rolled his eyes and did so, revealing an enormous pile of rupees of every color, stamped with the ensigns of a dozen different nations.  “Your compensation for any inconvenience we may have caused,” she said diplomatically.

            Bro clicked his tongue.  “We don’t need your money—”

            “But we’ll take it anyway,” said Nana with a bright smile.  “I’ve always wanted a tile roof.  And the bridge needs repairing, as well.  And don’t you think the village will look better with a paved road?” 

            Bro rolled his eyes.  “Sweet merciful Nayru, who decided we had to be in charge around here?”

            Sweetly, Nana said, “I did of course!”

            Vriska sighed and looked at the treasure longingly.  “Seems like such a waste to use the whole spoils from the Holodrum job on one dead-end fishing village.”

            “You’ve been to Holodrum?”  John asked.  “What’s it like?  Do the seasons really change every day?”

            She made an expansive gesture with her left arm.  “Gather ‘round my children and I’ll tell you a tale—”

            “We’ll have time for that later,” said Rose, voice quiet but cutting.  “Everyone on the boat.  If we set sail now, we’ll make it by tomorrow night.”

            Quick goodbyes were exchanged, and then John and Dave were loaded onto the boat and made to row out to _the Grimdark_.  A large crowd had gathered, well, large for this island.  The village was fewer than a hundred people, and John knew them all by name.  He tried to press the scene into his memory, having a feeling that he wouldn’t be back for a long time.  Then Vriska started singing a sea shanty about a troll denied entry into the navy because of her race that was shaping up to be interesting, until Aranea elbowed her in the ribs.  “Nobody wants to hear about your sexual conquests,” she whispered, only loud enough for someone with Hylian ears to hear.  John snickered.  Rose’s mouth thinned to a slit.

                    

            _The Grimdark_ was a massive ship, or so it seemed to Dave and John’s eyes, which had never seen anything bigger than a war-canoe from the extreme south, the day Bro had proven his role as the island’s defender beyond a shadow of a doubt.  In actuality, like most ships of her kind _the Grimdark_ was smaller than average for easy mobility, but she certainly had a presence that was unmatched by even the mightiest galleons.  She was made of some very dark wood, each plank a work of art carved with looping whorls that might have been roots and vines, and might have been something else entirely.  Her black sails bore a pair of crossed scimitars, holding up the same symbol that was present on Rose’s dress.  Of course, the most impressive thing was the figurehead, the enormous monstrosity of black wood that seemed to be a single piece, a horrorterror with a thousand tentacles of writhing thorns.  Up close, they could see a vaguely heart shaped face with enormous eyes that were actually lamps, and the stem of the ship was the long, pointed, squid-like head, sheathed with black iron to serve as a ram.  Monstrous, but beautiful.

            Once aboard, Rose made introductions.  “You’ve already met my First Mate,” said Rose, indicating Vriska, “my navigator,” Aranea gave a polite wave, “and my…Spades Slick,” the gruff Carapacian scowled while playing with a butterfly knife, which promptly flew out of his hand and into the ocean.  “His exact purpose on the ship appears to be fighting like a madman and then disappearing when there’s real work to be done.”  With an expansive gesture, she turned to the rest of the assembled crewmen.  “The rest of them are expendable.  Go about your business.  I’m awfully tired,” and with that she retreated belowdecks, the crewmen giving her a wide berth, almost as if in awe.

            Vriska smirked.  “Okay, now that Miss Bossypants has gone to get her beauty rest, I’ll make some proper introductions.”

            John was first introduced to the artillerist, Jake English, a boy that looked surprisingly like himself, although his eyes were green and he had the oddity of bright pink fur on his Hylian ears.  “I should say we look nothing alike,” the boy opined.  “You’re fair and I’m swarthy,” he said, offering his hand.

            “You always talk like that?” Dave asked, shaking his hand.

            “English is an ironic nickname,” Vriska explained.  “We found him stranded on an island last year and he didn’t speak a word of it.  He only spoke Ancient Hylian.  Natively.”

            “My grandmother was trying to prepare the world for some grand revival of civilization,” he explained cheerily, “and hoped to expedite the process by bringing up a generation of children who could speak the ‘sacred tongue’.  Of course, she only had me!”

            “That’s the creepiest shit ever,” Dave noted.

            “I taught him English,” Aranea broke in.  “It was a very fascinating process, teaching a modern tongue to a speaker of a dead one.  He had an entire set of expressions that made no logical sense in the modern context yet he used for everyday life, such as swearing by the name of ‘Zelda’, a being whose identity is unknown except for key references in the _Edda_ and Rauru’s _Histories of_ —” 

            Vriska covered her sister’s mouth.  “Long story short, he talks like an old man because he was raised to.  Next person.”

            Nepeta Leijon was a charming young troll with a swishy blue tail and stout triangular horns that looked like another pair of ears.  She was sitting in a corner stroking the head of a white cat the size of a Calatian shepherd, with two broad mouths and glowing green eyes.  “Are you in charge of the ship’s cat?”  John asked jokingly, as he bent to pet the creature.

            She shook her head.  “I _am_ the ship’s cat!” she said.  “Pounce de Leon is head of security.”

            “What,” Dave said.

            Suddenly her tail suddenly stiffened and fluffed up, and she ran off on all fours faster than the eye could see.  The cat licked its paw and smoothed out its head fur.

            The boys were then hurriedly introduced to Sir Reginald-Dunsany Willoughby III and Smee, the cook.  “Nak,” said the esteemed gentleman.  He was a one-eyed crocodile standing on his hind-legs with bright red scales.

            “Word up,” said Dave, raising his fist.  Willoughby bumped it.

            Smee said nothing, beak shut so firmly John doubted they could have pried a word out if they wanted.  He shivered, his stout foreclaws clicking against his rose-pink shell.  He was a tortoise, and pink as coral.  “But damn,” said Vriska, “can he cook.  Let’s meet someone else before he gets used to you and talks your ear off.” 

            In all the crew totaled around twenty people of all races and varying degrees of sentience.  In all the commotion, the two boys barely even noticed Outset Island disappearing over the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Mitspeiler, are we ever gonna get to the Forsaken Fortress or are you just gonna bog us down in existential morass and admittedly hilarious jokes?” Quiet you, I’m creating (that’s a yes to both)! Next chapter, Forsaken Fortress, one way or another, and then after we clear our first dungeon (those of you who’ve played the game are laughing) it’s off to the real adventure.  
> Naturally, there will be large divergences from canon, plotwise, no point in telling the same story twice, but it’ll all amount to the same thing. They’re going to start fairly soon, if they haven’t already.  
> Does Rose seem a bit bitchy? Good. She did grow up in this world without the calming influence of her canon friends. And Jake’s ears are a reference to A Link to the Past. See y’all again real soon.


	4. Deathly Calm

            Something happened to John that he would never have thought possible.  He became sea-sick.  It wasn’t entirely unreasonable.  He’d been on a canoe, of course, but never a large ship, and the two experiences are quite different, plus he was much farther out to sea than he had ever been and the weather as choppy as it had been when they set out.  It was still not something he would care to admit in front of Dave and a crew of scurvy seadogs, so he quietly slipped belowdecks while Vriska regaled the crewmen with tales of her exploits. Apparently they were different every time, so it paid to listen.

            The inside of the ship was not as dark as he’d have thought, as it was made of or at least paneled with much lighter colored though less interesting wood than the exterior, and candles hung in sconces at regular intervals.  There was a door across from him and, just in front of it, a stairway leading further down.  The ship gave a lurch and John tasted salt.  He decided not to risk the stairs and went for the door, swallowing hard.

            It was a comfortable little cabin, decorated with elegant furniture and hung with a variety of drawings and portraits.  There was a single pictograph, a rakish looking woman in a blue mask up in a corner next to a bookshelf that had been stuffed beyond capacity; her strawberry blond hair rendered a dull brown by the sepia tone.  Rose was sitting on the bed, reading a black leather-bound volume that looked very heavy.  John almost didn’t recognize her, because she was wearing a fuzzy orange bathrobe and had been scrubbed clean.  “Wow, you’re really pale,” John said.

            “So are you,” Rose responded immediately, without even looking up.  “My complexion, however, does not have any fetching undertones of green, as yours seems to.  One wonders how a boy from a fishing village on a small island becomes seasick.”

            The ship lurched again and John felt dizzy.  “I’m sorry,” he said, gulping.  “I’ll leave.”  He turned on his heel and nearly fell over.

            Rose sighed.  “Stay a while.  Have some tea to soothe your nerves.  You’ll feel better soon.”  She shut her book and gestured towards the center of the room, where a small table (bolted to the floor) carried a steaming silver teapot and matching cups.  John was unsure if it had been there before, but he poured himself a cup and sat down on the small, two-seater couch opposite the bed.

            The tea was very dark purple, almost black, and had a strong, fruity flavor.  John thought it would taste better cold.  At least it gave him something to do other than try to not throw up, and it did seem to settle his stomach a little.  At least his spit wasn’t salty anymore.  Just above Rose’s head, there was an ancient looking woodcut print depicting a young man dressed in rusty red tones, holding a sword above his head that seemed to radiate light.  John said, “It looks a bit like Dave,” and sipped his tea.

            “Almost exactly,” Rose said, nodding her head.  She had yet to look up from her book.  “He might be a distant relation.  Perhaps.”

            “Is that why you let him come aboard?”  John asked.  The tea was starting to grow on him.  “A chance to meet the hero’s descendant?  If that’s what he is.”

            Rose shrugged.  “It’s been uncountable ages since the hero’s time.  For all we know everyone alive today is a descendant of his, considering how popular they say he was with the ladies.  And you may as well ask why I let _you_ onboard.  My feelings of magnanimity are slowly returning to their normal levels.  Perhaps tonight you’ll wake up at the bottom of the ocean with your throat slit and your pockets emptied.”

            John snickered.  “You have a fantastic sense of humor.”

            Rose did finally look up.  “Are you being sarcastic?” she asked, eyebrow raised as if in challenge.

            “No, you’re funny.”  She narrowed her eyes suspiciously and John snorted.  “You have this whole fierce pirate persona, but you don’t really mean it.  It’s great!”

            “Persona,” she said, voice flat and dripping with venom.  John’s grin only widened.  She shut her book.  “John, I have sunken ships and put entire garrisons to the sword.  I’m feared across the Great Sea.  I have the death mark in five countries.  I once went ashore in disguise and heard a mother scold her children, saying they would be carried away by _the Grimdark_ if they didn’t start behaving, and they cried and promised to be good.  I _am_ a fearsome pirate.”

            “You’re a lot like Dave,” John said.  “He acts all stoic, and he is.  But he plays up so much that no one can tell if he’s serious or not.  You take it to the next level though.”

            “A comparison to your best male friend?” Rose asked.  “That is the absolute last thing a girl wants to hear from a boy.  You do seem to…admire him a great deal, however,” she said with half-lidded eyes.

            “Yeah, Dave’s pretty great,” John said, oblivious.  “You should talk to him sometime, that’d be…entertaining!”

            “Did you just turn my phrasing against me?”

            John chuckled.

            “Is your stomach quite settled?” Rose asked.

            “Yes, thanks for the—”

            “Then you should leave,” she said, opening her book back up.  “I do have a _persona_ to maintain, and entertaining young men in my private quarters is not part of it.”  Feeling as if he’d done something wrong, John stood up and left.

 

            Just outside, he ran into Dave and Jake.  “Sup,” said Dave.

            “Salutations my good chum!” said Jake, ears perked up high.  “What business did you have with the Captain?  Never mind, come along!”  He tugged on John’s sleeve, pulling him towards the stairs.  Wordlessly and with his hands in his pockets, Dave followed.  The staircase was short, and led to a balcony overlooking the hold, half full of crates and boxes sliding around with the movements of the ship.  Several lanterns hung from the ceiling on ropes.  Across from them was a ladder leading to a doorway beyond which was a small room at the nose of the ship.  “Gentlemen,” Jake shouted, “Behold!”

            Dave whistled.  “It’s so impressive.  Wait, no it’s not.”

            Affecting a paternal voice, Jake said, “the laymen looks at this hold and sees merely a hold, but to the eyes of a man steeped in the spirit of adventure, it’s a crucible of untapped creative potential!”  He made a grand gesture, and Dave yawned and sat down, legs dangling out over the balcony.

            Jake frowned.  “Egbert, perhaps you’re more adventurish than your friend here—”

            “Not a word,” Dave intoned from his position on the floor.

            “Shut up,” said Jake without skipping a beat, as if accustomed to being interrupted, “So, what would you say to a wager?”

            John raised an eyebrow.  “What kind of wager?”

            “Do you think you can make it into that room—”

            “Lame,” said Dave, laying down on the ground and resting his head on his hands.  Though he couldn’t see through the dark glasses, John assumed he had closed his eyes to take a nap.

            “—without touching the floor?”  Jake finished, looking very self-satisfied. 

            Dave sat back up.  “So what are we betting?”

            “If you fail, I get all your rupees,” said Jake.  “If you succeed, you can have the treasure I set up in that room!”

            “But what is it?” asked John.

            Jake blew a raspberry.  “You’re not supposed to know!  When you’re on an adventure you go raiding tombs and suchlike on the mere promise of treasure, nevermind whether it be purest platinum or a dingy old scroll!  What say you men?  Shall you undertake my challenge?!”

            Dave laid back down.  “See it was almost interesting but then you had to go and ruin it with your babbling.  I don’t fucking know.  Egbert, you want to do it?  Might be worth some laughs.”

            John frowned.  “You think I can’t do it?  We both have the same sensei you know.  I can do anything you can do!”

            “Hey John I didn’t mean—”

            “Yeah, laughs of… _joy_ ,” John spat, ignoring him, “from me!  When I collect my random bullshit treasure!”  He stepped back towards the stairwell, and kicked off to a running start, leaping through the air, and latching onto one of the ropes. 

            He instantly realized that this was a terrible idea.  It was pretty far down to the floor; the ship seemed bigger on the inside, and John was reminded that the Captain was some kind of witch.  More mundanely, there was a fragile glass ball of burning oil now swinging dangerously under his foot, ready to splash its contents all over his leg, or worse, all over the ship.  But he was here now, so there was nothing to it but to apply himself to the task at hand.

            Setting his foot on the lantern, wincing at the heat, John began to pump his arms, redirecting his weight towards the next rope.  It soon became apparent that it was too far to reach.  He would have to jump.  He closed his eyes and kicked off.  For a brief second, he felt utterly weightless, and then he felt the rope brush his face and clasped his arms around it tightly.  He could hear Jake cheering from behind him, as well as lazy clapping that must have been Dave’s.  “There’s only six more to go!” they both said at once, the one with enthusiasm and the other with the dull undertones of the unamused.  John did it again.

 

            He eventually reached the thing.  The small room’s purpose seemed to be only to light the lanterns in the eyes of the figurehead, which from the inside seemed even more daunting than before.  It would certainly be quite a spectacle to meet _the Grimdark_ out at sea on a dark night.  There was a large grey chest with a lock shaped like the spade from a deck of cards, with black spikes along the width of it.  John opened it, humming a little tune as he did so; he’d apparently always hummed it when opening things but only now seemed to realize.  He kept humming as he pushed the lid open.  The chest was empty.

            He turned around and ran to the doorway, almost falling to his certain death as the ship jerked again.  “Goddammit English!  There’s nothing here!”

            Jake laughed.  “Just tap the lock old sport!  You’ll see!”

            John glared at the other boy, then went back to the chest and did as he was told.  It was suddenly replaced with a small pack of cards.  He must have said something but he didn’t remember saying it, because he could suddenly hear the other two laughing as hard as they could.  “What even is it Egbert?  Just tell me,” Dave called.

            “It’s a magic box that turns into a deck of cards and you can’t have it,” said John.

            “Fuck I don’t want it,” said Dave.  “What use is that anyway?  The ability to carry an entire armory with you at all times.  Honestly.  It’s unsportsmanlike.  But for real though let me stash some things.”

 

            The next day, John awoke tired, heart pounding with anticipation.  Tonight he’d either save his sister or die trying.  He wasn’t afraid, and that wasn’t just stupidity or bravado on his part.  It was more that he was too preoccupied with anxiousness for any other emotions to take root.  He knew that something would happen today, and it may well change his life forever, even end it, and he wished it would just get on with it already and happen.  It was five in the morning in December, and the sun wouldn’t rise for a while yet.

            Wrapped in his thin blanket, he sat at the starboard side, legs dangling underneath the railing, and watched. All around, the ship began to wake.  Sollux, vision two-fold making him a perfect night watchman, descended from the crow’s-nest to hand his duty off to someone else and finally get some sleep.  The two barely acknowledged each other.  Below in the galley, Smee stumbled around clumsily, rattling cutlery and banging pots and pans.  The ship groaned, a sound like the roar of a beast.  John paid it no mind.  The lanterns at the front of the ship were extinguished as the morning became blue in anticipation of the sunrise; John saw the reflection of the lights in the water flicker off, first one, then the other.

            “Watching the sun rise?”  Rose asked.  At this point John was not surprised.

            “I’m just waiting,” Said John.  “We’re going to get there tonight, aren’t we?”

            Rose nodded.  John didn’t see her.  She cleared her throat.  “It is polite to look at people who are talking to you, Mr. Egbert.  And yes, we will arrive at the Forsaken Fortress tonight.  Just after sunset, in fact.”

            “Oh, Farore,” he said, finally turning to look at her.  Her makeup today was actual makeup and not the dark mask of war paint.  There wasn’t a hint of grey anywhere on her, though the choice of black lipstick he found unusual.  “What is that, like twelve hours?  I’m going to go crazy!”  He stood up.  “You look nice today.  Like, nice as in ‘not scary’, I mean, not as a compliment to your appearance.”

            Hand on chin, Rose smirked.  “The purpose of war paint is to wear it during battle.  I can’t go around as a grim grey specter of death _all_ day.  But is my standard appearance such that it shouldn’t be complimented?”

            “You’re trying to make me flustered but it won’t work,” John said with a wag of his finger.  “I’m socially retarded.  I’m incapable of shame, you see.”

            Rose nodded with sagacity.  “Shame is a valuable tool for acquiring social conventions.  Without it we would all just be free to do as we willed without fear of the disapproval of others, and then where would we be as a species?  Probably frolicking in the Edenic gardens of Drowned Hylia, completely untainted by the sprawl of its fabled cities, eating sweet golden apples, singing songs of such elegant simplicity that our greatest composers would weep for their pretensions, living life to its fullest and making love under the stars, and who wants that?”

            “You’d get dirt and stuff in sensitive areas,” John agreed.

            “But maybe,” said Rose, pouting slightly, ears drooping, “I was just fishing for a compliment.”

            John ran his fingers through his hair.  “Don’t you have people for that?” he asked.  “Go order one of your crewmen to call you pretty while you cry into a bowl of ice-cream.”

            Rose yawned.  “Perhaps later.  For now I’m merely going to wonder why it is I can’t seem to shake you.”

            “Sure you can,” said John.  “I was really confused about why you kicked me out yesterday.  I thought I’d done something wrong, but if you’re talking to me now it can’t have been that bad.”

            “You were upset that you’d incurred my displeasure?” Rose asked, a hint of smugness washing over her façade.

            John shook his head.  “I was upset that I’d offended a friend.”

            Rose choked on her spit.  “John, we’re not friends!”

            “So then you’ve been flirting with me,” he said, suddenly very serious.  He grabbed her by the shoulders.  “Listen Rose, I’ve got a job to do.  Where I’m going you can’t follow—”

            “I’m taking you there—”

            “What I’ve got to do, you can’t have any part of—”

            “I assure you, I’ve done worse—”

            “Rose,” he said forcefully, “I’m no good at being noble but the problems of two kids don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.  One day you’ll understand that.”  He cupped her chin.  “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”

            She socked him in the ribs.  John coughed, “So friends then?” with a pained smile.  Rose rolled her eyes and walked away.  It occurred to John that she hadn’t killed him because there was no one else around to see.  “So we are friends.”

            On towards noon, John saw something on the horizon, and he was certain that it wasn’t another island.  The rumored ‘thousand-thousand islands’ of the Great Sea may well prove to be an understatement, he thought, as they had seen more islands than he cared to mention, most of them small and uninhabited, many cluttered with the moldering ruins of Hylian civilization.  Had he been looking to the starboard side, he would have seen the grand hamlet of Great Fish Isle, one of the largest towns in this corner of the world aside from Windfall, and rumored to be far more beautiful.  Its blue tiled roofs would have glinted just so in the sunlight.  The mural on the town wall, which served less for defense than for a canvas, depicting a swarm of fish, no two of which were alike in size and color, would have seemed to be moving with the ocean. 

            But John was facing port, and had been since he woke up, so he did not see it, and so he never would.

            What he saw was a ship.  A low, long freighter with a sort of metal pillbox shaped cabin on top.  It had no sails or visible means of propulsion, which was just as well, because it didn’t seem to be moving.  As _the Grimdark_ approached, it unleashed a barrage of trumpets.  “NAK,” cried Willoughby from the crow’s-nest, shrill voice carrying all over the ship.

            Soon, everyone had assembled around John, staring at the immobile vessel.  “I think they’re signaling for help,” said John, trying to be helpful.

            “Sure is,” Vriska muttered, more to herself than to him.  “It’s one of those stupid Calatian tick-tock things.  I hate them.”

            John narrowed his eyes and gave a sort of half-nod that could have been interpreted as either understanding or a signal to clarify.  Vriska sighed.  “It uses clockworks to propel itself, but the engines break down all the time—”

            “And they are likely relying on the fact to attract our attention,” said Rose, who was suddenly in their midst.  She was now wearing the dark paint.  John’s heart sank.  Was he about to witness a pirate raid?  “There’s a 2.5 million rupee reward for my head in Calatia,” said Rose.  “Tell me John, what should I do in this situation?  Likely as not, this is a trap.”

            He smiled nervously.  “That’s uh, really flimsy reasoning there.  It doesn’t look dangerous—”

            “Said the boy who has never seen a large ship until yesterday,” said Rose.  Nobody laughed.  “Mr. English,” she called.

            “Yes Captain,” he responded, as enthusiastic as ever.  “Shall I perforate the hull with grapeshot?  It should cripple her engine—”

            Rose snorted.  “Her engine is already crippled English, or so the Calatians would have us believe.  Load a powder keg onto the catapult.  Sink her.”

            “No, Jake!”  John pushed his way through the crowd as the Calatian ship signaled for help again.  The other boy turned the catapult with hardly any effort, picking up a heavy, blue-painted barrel with a smoking fuse in leather-sheathed hands and dropping it into the bowl.  Jake pulled the lever just as John reached him.  The barrel flew through the air in a perfect arc, smashing into the wooden outer hull of the freighter.  It plopped into the water and John heaved sigh of relief.  It began to signal again—

            And was cracked right in half by the exploding powder keg.  It must have burned all the way down before hitting the water, John thought, ears drooping as low as they’d ever been, while the burning ruin sank into the ocean.

            “Excellent,” said Rose, shielding her eyes as she watched the conflagration with a disinterested look.  She turned away and headed towards the catapult.  “Well struck Mr. English,” she said, throwing him a purple rupee.  “John,” she said, boring into him with her violently purple eyes, “I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t worth the risk of raiding.”  She put her hand on his shoulder.  He backed away.  As if she hadn’t noticed, or had noticed and simply hadn’t cared, she continued. “And regardless, those automated vessels almost never carry anything of value.  Just a display of cultural superiority for us rural savages.”

            Wait.  “Automated?” John said through grit teeth.

            Rose wore a victorious smirk.  “Of course.  There wasn’t a living soul aboard that ship.”

            Jake snickered under his breath as John stood there, stunned.  Rose turned to leave.  And then John started laughing.  Rose stopped, and then turned to glare at him.

            “That was really good!” John snickered.  “I actually believed that you’d done something evil.  You’re a great trickster!”

            “No, stop it,” said Rose warningly.

            “I knew you couldn’t actually be that awful,” he said, trying to choke back his guffaws.  “It really worked with your persona, I didn’t suspect a thing.”

            “Stop praising me!” Rose snarled.  “You’re supposed to be humiliated!”  John lost control of his laughter.  The whole crew was staring now, ignoring the sinking wreck of the freighter.  Rose turned on her heel and stalked off to her cabin.

 

            The air was thin, so high up.  Jade could barely breathe, and the massive fist clenched tightly around her was not helping matters.  Combined with the quiet rhythmic motion of the monster’s wings, and she quickly fell into a sporadic, fitful sleep.  She would wake and see the sun, burning brightly like the eye of a god, or, if Abraxas had adjusted his grip as she slept, the formless void of the sea below.  It wasn’t blue.  It was every color.  Green and purple and turquoise and deepest navy, spattered with red and orange here and there like blood dripping into a bucket of water wherever the great kelp forests lived.  And all of it was spangled with silver dust, becoming richer as the sun grew in strength and pierced through the clouds.

            Time and space lost all meaning.  She felt she only existed when she was panting for air, looking at the sea.  Suddenly it was nighttime, and she didn’t realize at first.  She mistook the night sky for the sea, thinking they’d passed over some monstrous trench, and the stars for those broken chips of sunlight.  Then she saw the bright golden beam of a searchlight illuminating a wisp of grey cloud, and her perspective righted itself just as the air thickened.  The monster was going in for a landing.

            Jade’s sensitive ears began to throb as the pressure equalized.  She screamed in pain and tried to cover them, but her arms were pinned to her sides.  She would never be quite sure, but she might have passed out one last time.

            If she did, then she awoke as she was unceremoniously tossed to a rough-cut wood floor and hauled into a cage by something incredibly fowl-smelling.  Everything was asleep except her mind, and she whimpered as the blood rushed back into her veins.  “D’aww, you brought us another friend, Moey?  You’re such a sweet boy,” it was a girl’s voice.  Her words were slightly slurred and had something like what Jade imagined was a Windfall accent.  There was a porcine grunt of acknowledgement followed by a sloshing sound as something hit the floor.  There was a sharp gasp.  “For _me_?  Twice in a day?  You are just the most perf Moblin ever, Moe!  I totally love you.”

            “Please stop flirting with the…things, Roxy,” another female voice, this one quiet and long-suffering.  “Sooner or later he’s going to actually want…something from you.”

            The first girl, Roxy, shushed her loudly, and there was a wet sound between a pop and a smack, as if she’d put her hand on the other girl’s mouth.  “Quiet Janey, we’ve got to help new girl.  She’s probably all discombubblated—discombobulated—discumboozled—no, I was right the second time.  Fuck it, whatever, she’s probably all fucked up.  Let’s get her blood flowin’.”  Two pairs of hands started rubbing Jade’s limbs, helping to ease the pins and needles that were molesting their way into her cells.

            “This’ll help ya’ out too, new girl,” Said Roxy, just as Janey—Jane?—shouted “No!” and a leather bag full of fortified wine was upended into Jade’s mouth.  The foul taste shocked her into wakefulness as she jumped into a sitting position and coughed out the substance.  A very small amount made it into her stomach though, where it built itself a cozy little fire.

            Jade beheld a pair of Hylian girls, one with short black hair who looked for all the world like John in female form, her ears turning down at the ends like a puppy’s, the other shockingly pink; pink ears, bright, pale pink hair, and downright luminescent pink eyes, as well as a pink tint to her face that was probably brought on by having drunk some of that nasty shit.  “I’m Roxy,” said the pink girl, “and that’s Jane Crocker.” She wiggled her fingers.  “Welcome to Hell!  OoOoOoOoOoOoh!”

            “Don’t listen to her,” Jane said hurriedly.  “It’s not so bad.  They feed us alright, and the guards aren’t even allowed to be in this room unless they’re bringing people or food in—” Her glasses, once elegant red-framed pieces that had been bent out of shape, fell to the ground and cracked.  She made a sound.  “Glass is so expensive...” she moaned as she picked them back up.

            “Aw c’mon Janey,” said Roxy, jovially slapping the other girl on the back with enough force to make her drop the glasses again.  “Who cares about glass when the worst is yet to come?”  She pointed at Jade.  “Janey’s only been here a week and a half.  My month is up in three days.”

            “What happens after a month?” Said Jade with a sinking feeling.  Girls had been disappearing from all over the Great Sea, or so the rumors said.  The room was a huge circle full of wooden cages.  They were scattered around the floor, built into the filthy blue walls, suspended from the cavernous ceiling, so high she couldn’t see where the chains connected.  Only one of them was occupied.

            “They take you up to the tippy top and you’re never seen again!” Said Roxy, excitedly.

            “We don’t know what happens,” Jane assured.  Roxy blew a raspberry while making a prolonged and obscene gesture.  “What the fuck could happen?  They throw you off it of course.”  Roxy took a swig from her wineskin.

            Jane put her hand on the pink girl’s shoulder.  “Don’t be scared Roxy.  You don’t have to…”  She looked down, embarrassedly.

            “Have to what?” Roxy asked.  “Drink myself into a stupor?  ‘Course I do.  But it’s not what you think.” She stood up, striking a heroic pose.  “I’m buildin’ up a reserve of liquid courage for my daring escape.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A while ago this fanmade concept art for a Zelda game wherein Zelda was actually the hero circulated the internet. The proposed story involved the nation of Calatia, which for those of you who don’t study Zelda lore with religious fervor is Link’s homeland in the original game, becoming an industrialized, expansionist empire. There were amazing drawings of their moving fortresses and clockwork soldiers and I really wished it were a real game just because of the gorgeous setting this guy crapped out in his spare time. I drew a wee bit of inspiration from this, and made reference to Calatia’s mechanization in this chapter. It’s sort of going to be my go-to explanation for all the schizo-tech in the Zelda universe.  
> ‘So mitspeiler, do the alpha kids and the guardians both exist? How are you going to explain that?” Shut your gob that’s how.  
> I believe that this is my second attempt at writing Roxy. Huh.  
> “Drowned Hylia” is the poetic name for Hyrule in this AU, like Columbia for the US or Albion for Britain. You may have guessed why that is. Don’t spoil it.  
> Next chapter; shit gets real.


	5. The Eyes of the Storm

            The only sound was the pounding of the ocean waves and the pounding of John’s heart as Dave pressed against him, arms tight around his chest, breath hot on the back of John’s neck.

            Vriska had crammed them both into a barrel.  It was very awkward.  “Don’t worry boys, Jake’s a pro,” she said, face contorted into a devilish sneer as Aranea, standing beside her, tried to suppress a giggle.  “He’s going to launch you into that window no problem!”

            “How the fuck did you get us in here?” Dave muttered.

            “Can you stop breathing so hard?” John asked, turning his head.  “It’s making me uncomfortable.”

            “Your cheek is touching my cheek,” said Dave.  “It should not do that ever.”

            “But seriously,” said John, ignoring Dave, “weren’t we just having dinner?  When did we arrive?”  Aranea grinned, and winked her seven-pupiled eye.

            “Fuckin’ trolls man,” Dave muttered.

            “One more breath out of you Dave and I swear to Farore…”

            Ignoring the arguing boys, Vriska shouted over her shoulder. “Jake, just fire the stupid thing!”

            “Still accounting for wind resistance,” he muttered, scribbling on a pad. 

            “It’s fine,” Vriska growled, strutting over and pulling the lever.

 

            The Forsaken Fortress was a massive, crude structure that seemed to have been carved from the living rock.  No, shaped.  The monolith of bluestone was so warped and crooked that it must have been poured as molten rock into a poorly made mold, the work of some apprentice to a cosmic craftsman.  A very poor work, but a grand one. No wall was completely flat, every edge seemed either too sharp or too dull, and the great tower had _branches_ , lengths of stone jutting out into the free air hundreds of feet above the sea or the tiny clump of rocks on which it was founded, thin, narrow branches hung with anchors and figureheads of plundered ships, ending in huge lumps that must have been far too heavy for them to sustain, but they did.  It was on one of these that the monster Abraxas made its nest, but that was not the strangest sight.  Atop the highest branch, higher even than the top of the tower, sat a mighty galleon.  Or most of one.  Judging by the warm lamplight streaking through the portholes, it was inhabited.

            John perceived all of this as he streaked through the air, but didn’t have time to properly interpret the information, other than thinking “eh?” before the barrel exploded against the wall mere feet from the window they’d been aiming at.  He and Dave plummeted to the water below.  Something bright and shiny streaked through the air.  He could almost swear he saw something brilliant and pink leaping from the same window.

            The water hit him like a barrage of icy daggers, punching the breath from his chest.  He almost lost consciousness, but something warm welled up from within him and brought the strength back into his limbs.  He swam to a stone ledge, grabbing hold, panting like a dog.  His hammer was gone, and Dave was nowhere to be seen.  “Fuck!”  John took a deep breath, slipped off his glasses, and dove back into the water.

            Dave had sunk nearly to the bottom, pulled down by his heavy cape.  He looked almost bored as John hauled him to the surface despite having nearly drowned.  Of course, he panted much the same as lamer people.

            John clambered up onto the ledge and put his glasses back on.  “Dave, your shades,” he mumbled as his teeth began to chatter.

            “Shit are they broken?”  He actually sounded concerned.

            “Uh, no, but it’s pretty dark—”

            “When I said I wasn’t going to take them off,” Dave said, “I meant it.  Never again.  Not even to sleep.”  John was stunned.  It was so nonchalant, as if Dave hadn’t just told his best friend that he was in love with his sister.  John said nothing and they began to walk.  There was a staircase leading up to a sort of central courtyard that was being absolutely swept by spotlights.  There on a step was the broken-off hilt of Dave’s sword.  He picked up the blade, now only a foot long, with a grimace.  Something suddenly started rumbling in John’s pocket and he jumped, barely stifling a scream as he slowly pulled it out.  Dave watched in silent judgment.

            It was a black sphere, semi-transparent with a glowing pink Spirograph embedded deep inside that seemed to move when it was turned.  Rose’s voice sounded loud and clear inside his head.  _My sincerest apologies for mis-launching_ , she said, _I assure you Mr. English shall be reprimanded.  He is an excellent artillerist, but puts far too much stock in what the Serkets have to say_.

            “No, it’s okay, we weren’t hurt badly,” Dave stared at John as if he were going insane.  It occurred to him that Dave couldn’t hear her.  “It’s Rose,” John explained.  “She’s talking to me through the ball thingy!”

            “Okay you’ve clearly hit your head,” said Dave, adjusting his cape.  “I’ma go rescue Jade now you stay here and make sure you don’t get eaten by your own skin or whatever delusional people do.”

            “Fuck you Dave,” said John, just as Rose sighed exasperatedly.  “Come touch this thing.”  Dave sighed and took hold of the sphere.  _If you want to respond, don’t speak but simply direct your thoughts towards me_.  To Dave’s credit, he did not visibly react with utter terror.

            “Oh,” John said, then caught himself.  _Oh, sorry_.

            _Now_ , said Rose authoritatively, _what you want to do first is disable those searchlights.  Look up at the tower._   There was a narrow stair snaking its way along the outside, jutting out towards the open air without so much as a handrail.  A spotlight trailed all up and down the stair, illuminating it with stark clarity.  _Let me guess_ , Dave thought with a sinking feeling, _that’s the only staircase_.

            _Indeed so Mr. Strider_ , said Rose, dryly _.  I suggest you disable those searchlights before doing anything rash.  At least the one that is actively shining on the tower, of course._   John looked around, and located the offending machine atop one of the squat, squarish towers set in the fortress wall.  He sent an image of himself nodding determinedly.  _You are a fast learner, Mr. Egbert_ , she said, impressed.  _The things should be simple enough to disable, once you get up there._

 _And how do we do that?_ Asked Dave.

            _I’m confident in your ability to think critically,_ said Rose, tone dripping with sarcasm like blood from the throat of a freshly butchered hog.  _Once you’ve done it though, I suggest you head for the tower immediately, as we will circle around to that side and commence bombardment._   There was a crackling sound and the sphere flared then went dim, burning a brilliant after-image in John’s eyes.

            “Wish you had shades at night now, eh?” Said Dave, the slightest hint of a smile on his lips.

            “I’m getting real tired of your shit Dave,” said John with faux anger.

            “And what do you see in the flighty pirate wench anyway?” he continued.

 

            The Bokoblin picked its nose, examined the product, and ate it.  He went back to work.  It was awfully tedious work, manning the spotlights.  Just pulling the levers, looking left and right occasionally.  By the stairwell, there was a barrel.  He was almost certain it hadn’t been there before.  Oh well. It wasn’t his place to pull levers, it was his place to rip things with his tusks.  He wished he was up in the tower with the Moblins.  There were girl-children in there, and it had been long since he’d eaten one.  They had the softest skin and the sweetest blood, and made such lovely music when you bit into their throats.  Of all the things he’d eaten, no flesh had had such rich and complex a flavor, no bone as satisfying and crisp a crunch.  It did not occur to him that thoughts like these are why he was being isolated from everyone else and none of the other Bokoblins liked to sit with him at lunch.

            Something hard pressed against his throat, yanking him off the controls and sending the spotlights flailing upwards.  His feet struggled to gain purchase on the ground but he couldn’t, and his sharp little fingers couldn’t pry off the fearsome grip.  Something was choking him with his own Boko stick, and it was inexorably strong.  A voice like a child, but surely it must have been a mighty warrior, called out.  “Come on Dave, he’s breaking free!”  The barrel upended itself and out stepped a figure all in red, pale as a ghost.  The Bokoblin tried to scream as the black-eyed monster from his childhood nightmares rammed a broken sword into his belly.  His last thoughts were of his dam, scolding him with tales of the monster’s boogeyman.  The man in red.  The Knight.

           

            “Oh look,” John said, rifling through the Bokoblin’s pockets.  “Another one!” He cheerfully held up another butterfly shaped pendant, nearly identical to the one Dave had.  “Shit,” said Dave, looking at his own pendant.  “Here I thought it was all unique but it turns out they get mass produced in some sweatshop in Labrynna for two rupees an hour by half-starved lizard guys.”

            “I think it’s real gold,” said John, weighing pendant, testing the metal with his thumbnail.  “So even if it fake it’s still worth something.”

            Dave nodded.  “Right, I knew that.  We both trained under the same sensei, remember?  We both know the same things Egbert, stop trying to one-up me.”  John chuckled.  “We should leave though.  Like now.”  The two rushed down the stairs, leaving nothing but the puddle of spilled magenta on the floor.  Off in the distance, _the Grimdark_ readied its cannons.

            John and Dave snuck through the dark halls of the Forsaken Fortress.  The place was labyrinthine, sprawling and disorganized.  The main hallway that should have circumnavigated the building for example, ended abruptly at a balcony overlooking a barracks of some kind.  Across from them was an identical balcony, with a door that would lead them to Jade.  The problem was getting across.

            “Check it,” said Dave, pointing.  The barracks was supplied with an enormous amount of bunk beds.  The Bokoblins, not quite knowing how bunk beds were supposed to work, had assumed that you were supposed to keep stacking them, and so, along the northern wall, there was a creaky, uneven row of beds just a few feet below the balcony.  The only problem, aside from the very real danger of the whole structure coming crashing down, was that most of the beds were occupied.

            “Fuck that,” said John.  He pointed to the sole source of light, a lantern on a swinging rope.  “I’d rather risk falling to my death.  At least I wouldn’t be eaten alive.”

            “Fine,” said Dave, “you go one way and I go another, and last one there buys the other one lunch.”  They looked at each other a second, and John took a running leap for the lamp.  Dave sprinted over to the north wall and jumped down, landing deftly atop the wooden frame of a bed, not inches from a Bokoblin’s head. He strode with fluid grace across the path of mattresses.

            But John made it first.  “Hah!” he said, poking Dave in the chest.  The door opened and in walked a Moblin, a burly ogre with the head of a boar, a lantern in one hand and a gargantuan spear with a blade like a sword, hung with red tassels.  His blue-green pelt was covered in stiff hairs, and his little beady eyes searched this way and that.  The boys stood still.  These monsters had terrible eyesight, and would not see them if they didn’t move.  It bent down low and started sniffing, suspicious.  He turned to leave—

            And the fortress shook with the first salvo from _the Grimdark_.  He turned and saw John staggering from the blow, and bellowed, hurling his lantern at the boys.  Dave sidestepped it easily, and it went sailing through the air, shattering against the beds.  Those few Bokoblins who hadn’t been roused by the blast would soon be roused by the smoke, or burned to death.

            John swung the stolen Boko stick with all his might, smashing it against the monster’s face.  It broke, inflicting minimal damage.  It sneered, as much as a pig can be said to sneer, and wound up its free hand for a punch—

            John stabbed it in the eyes with the two halves of the broken stick.  It bellowed again, this time in agony, and charged.  John leapt away from the blow, but the monster’s fist caught on Dave’s cape, and pulled him down over the balcony.

            “Holy shit!” John screamed, watching helplessly as his friend fell through the growing smoke cloud to his certain death—

            The Moblin broke Dave’s fall, and he stuck his sword into the thing’s neck.  “I’m fine,” he said, limping to his feet.  His left foot was at a very awkward angle, and his voice barely carried over the sound of screaming Bokoblins.  “Don’t worry.  I’ll catch up, you go get Ja—”

            A Bokoblin, skin smoking and cracked, covered in blisters, lunged at his face with a burning brand, screaming a cry of rage and pain.  Dave struck him down in one blow.  “So as I was saying Egbert,” he said, sounding impatient.  John nodded and ran to the door just as a passel of similarly singed Bokoblins jumped onto his balcony.  He had no illusions about fighting them, and went right on through the door, barring it behind him.

            Ahead of him was the tower, much more daunting in height than he had first assumed, and he’d found it pretty daunting to begin with.  He took a step, just in time to hear a hideous crashing in the room behind him.  It was almost certainly the sound of that towering inferno of straw and dry wood collapsing under its own weight.  There was a pounding on the door, first angry, then panicked.  The sound of shrieking Bokoblins was a dull roar in the background, in harmony with the roaring of the flames.  John told himself that Dave would be okay, and ran across the path to the door at the foot of the tower.

            The sphere buzzed again just as he reached it.  _Rose I think I might have lost Dave,_ he said, and quickly lost coherency.

            _That’s enough John_ , she said sternly, but not unkindly.  _Dave can take care of himself, but now it falls to you to lead this little expedition.  A leader must be firm in his convictions and show no doubt to the world.  Be strong.  Open the door._   Out at sea, John could see the Grimdark, the muzzles of its cannons flashing in the dark, the now familiar whistling sound of the catapult cutting through the air as it flung powder kegs at the fortress, followed by the deep, sonorous boom that John felt more than heard.  Rose was out there, leading her crew in what must surely be their most dangerous mission yet, and she was fearless.  _Thank you,_ she said, mildly amused.

            He opened the door, and muttered an expletive.  The room was a sprawl of catwalks over some sort of shipyard, and there was a pair of Moblins on patrol in here.  He’d have to be careful.  _You’re going to have to be my replacement Dave_ , John explained.  _Quick, say something ironically_ , he thought as he ducked under a barrel. 

            _Oh,_ said Rose, with feigned enthusiasm.  _I simply adore being compared to your best male friend.  It is my favorite thing.  Are you in yet?_

Glaring at the Moblins through the bunghole, John responded.  _A pair of fat ugly pigmen blocking my way.  They’re too dense to go check out all the EXPLOSIONS_ , he complained. 

            Rose sighed.  _Hold the sphere up to the bunghole_ , she said, sounding more amused than she let on.  _I want to see_.  John did as told, wondering—

            The sphere flared the brightest pink yet, and there was a hideous roaring, ripping tearing sound, followed by a howl of purest agony followed by a heavy splash.  John looked again once the white starbursts in his vision had cleared.  There was a greasy, burned-out smear on the floor where one Moblin had been, and the other was gone.  _I exploded him_ , Rose explained.  _Happily, the other was caught in the blast, so I didn’t have to expend too much mana_.  John nodded as if he understood.  Then he slapped his forehead and sent an image of himself nodding.

 

            “So Moe,” said Roxy, playing with a loose strand of hair.  Boys loved it when she did that.  “How’s about we go behind that curtain over there and I make a proper pig-man out of you?”  The Moblin stared at her with an expression of confusion.  He grunted questioningly.

            “You seriously don’t know what I’m sayin’?” Roxy deadpanned.

            Jane moaned.  “Maybe you should just stop before—”

            “Janey I love you like a sister but shut the fuck up,” said Roxy, draining her wineskin.  “My self-esteem is about to take a serious blow if I’m unable to seduce something with a face so ugly not even its mother could love it.”  Turning back to the Moblin she started shouting.  “You!  Me!  Snu-snu!  Now!”  The Moblin took a step back and started grunting animatedly with his companion.

            Roxy sighed and retreated to the far end of the cage.  She fished into her pocket and pulled out a spoon.  The edge of its bowl had been sharpened to military grade lethality.  “Here Jane,” she said, handing it to her.  “I want you to have my prison shiv.”

            “No, Roxy, please don’t give up—” The Moblin opened up the cage door and beckoned with his finger. Roxy smiled with barely restrained glee.  She kissed Jane on the cheek.  “Keep it, I have an extra,” she said, and skipped off through the door.  The Moblin locked it shut behind him, and they disappeared behind the curtain.  The shrieking of seagulls briefly filled the room.

            “Look away dear,” said Jane, covering Jade’s eyes.  “This isn’t for children’s eyes!”

            Jade growled.  “I’m the same age as you are!”  And then there was a horrible gurgling sound and the Moblin fell back through the curtain with a fork in his throat, tearing it off its rod.  Roxy stood on the windowsill, grinning victoriously.  The other one screamed in rage and threw his lantern, igniting the curtain and his friend’s corpse.  He leveled his spear and charged.  “I won’t forget you guys,” she shouted, and jumped out the window.    An instant later, something crunched against the window.  The second Moblin roared impotently.

            “Aw, I missed it!” shouted Jade, shoving Jane away.

 

            Clinging to the slick, smooth wall with nothing but her fingertips, Roxy felt a moment of cold sobriety.  What the Hell was she doing?  Maybe she should have just waited out her time.  Surely whatever happened to the girls at the end of their month couldn’t be—

            Many yards away, dread Abraxas stirred in his nest, a sliver of orange light seeping out from his eye.  He mumbled and went back to sleep, the air rippling in the wake of his dreams.  Okay, nothing associated with _that_ could be any good for her.  Lizardlike, she made her way down the wall a few feet at a time, whishing she hadn’t been wearing such bright colors when she’d been captured.  Of course, the fact that she was captured at all spoke volumes about her value as a proud Sheikah warrior, but it was what it was.  Her blasé attitude concerning her heritage _also_ spoke volumes, but goddamn those people were too strict.  She decided she _wouldn’t_ go back to Chosen.  She really didn’t have it in her to serve some broken crown all her life with stalwart determination, ready to give her life for princes and princesses long, long dead.  Maybe she’d become a pirate.

            Upon reaching the bottom, she infiltrated the shipyard.  Now she would just have to sail out of here and—

            All of the ships here were pieces of crap.  She figured clumsy fingered goblin-folk wouldn’t be much use at ship-building, but none of the damn things were even sea-worthy.  What would she do now?

            “Psst,” a voice whispered from the shadows.  She looked around, but saw no one.  “Over here!”  Off in the corner, there was another ship, run aground on a pile of slag and sand, covered with a tarp.  She rushed over to it and pulled back the coverings.  “No fucking way,” she squealed, “this so totally perf!”

 

            Clinging to the slick, smooth wall of the tower, held up by nothing but his fingertips and the narrow stair underneath, John felt a thrill of exhilaration.  Soon, he’d be back with his sister.  Then it was just a matter of finding Dave and meeting up with the pirates again.  He wondered how they’d manage that, and figured that they would send Vriska and Spades out with the boat again.  No big deal, the hard part was almost over.  As if in confirmation, his foot finally stepped on solid ground; the narrow stair had ended at a broad path. It was twisted and full of holes out to oblivion, but a high wall protected from the icy breeze, and it looked like a short walk up to the top.  He strode up it with the confidence of a hard-fought victory.  Just there, in the middle of the path, was his hammer.  He grinned as he picked it back up, loving the already familiar weight of the thing.  Everything was finally looking up.

            Soon, a pair of heavy wooden doors twice his size set with a heavy bar were all that stood between him and his sister.  That and a pair of green-skinned Bokoblins armed with heavy machetes and crude wooden shields.  The goblin-folk had an odd caste system whose complexity rivaled that of the trolls, but John was sure that the green ones were considered the best warriors outside of the Moblins.

            The green-skinned creatures hissed menacingly, flashing their violently purple tongues and began to circle John.  He drew his hammer and his shield, and assumed the defensive stance sensei had taught him.  True, he was wielding a hammer and not a wooden practice blade, but sensei had been right.  John was made for the hammer.

            He snapped the hammer overhand, too quickly to see, and smashed it right into the face of the first Bokoblin.  Shocking purple blood spattered on his face as he pulled it back and swung towards the second, swatting his machete away just in time.  But the creature was quick and raised his shield; it cracked under the hammer blow, but it held.  While John was overextended, the Bokoblin sliced with the machete, and John just barely raised his own shield in time to ward off the flurry of blows.  The decrepit old thing looked as if it should shatter, but not even the enamel was chipped.  John smirked, and the Bokoblin seemed thrown, surprised.

            John took advantage and swung again.  The shield went up, and exploded under the force of the blow.  The Bokoblin leapt back, left arm hanging uselessly at his side.  They both swung their weapons simultaneously, and the machete went flying, clattering against the ground.  John took his hammer in both hands and thrust—an unexpected move, but he _had_ been trained with swords—lodging the head into the Bokoblin’s throat.

            John belted the hammer and hung his shield on his back.  As the dying creature lay burbling out of its ruined throat, John picked up the bar and tossed aside.  He didn’t spare a thought to the amount of strength he’d just expended.

            A great room, filled with empty cages.  John’s heart sank, as he walked into the center.  A dead Moblin with what looked like a spoon lodged in his spine lay in front of an open cage.  Off in the corner, there appeared to have been a fire.  There was no one here, he thought, until he heard a voice shout in concern.  “Oh no!  Roxy’s gone, just when our rescue arrives!”  He heard the patter of feet running towards him, and was nearly pushed to the ground as something inexorably strong grabbed onto him.

            “Shit!” he shouted.

            “John!”  Jade shouted.  Huh?  She dropped down from his shoulders and hugged him from the front this time.  “You came to save us!”

            “Us?”  He turned around and saw a pretty girl with short hair, dressed in bright blue clothes and metallic red jewelry.  “Uh, hi,” he said.  “I’m John.”

            “Jane Crocker,” she said, curtsying.  “You didn’t by any chance happen to see a girl in pink running around, possibly inebriated?”

            John shook his head.  “We’ll look for her on the way out.  But we have to hurry, the pirates are attacking, but they can’t keep it up forever—”

            “Whoa, you joined the pirates?!” Jade asked excitedly.  “That’s so _cooooool_.  Have you hooked up with Rose yet?”

            John laughed, only a little embarrassed.  It was nice to be the cool one for once.  Wait.  Shit, he’d nearly forgotten about Dave—

            A hideous shriek pierced the air, like the crow of a rooster combined with the screaming of a man and filtered through something completely insane, and the orange eyes of Abraxas suddenly filled his vision as the girls screamed.  Hell, he probably screamed too, paralyzed under the obscene, lamplike gaze of the monster.  It picked him up, squeezing the breath out of him, and flew upwards toward the ceiling.  It wasn’t there anymore; there was only the open sky.

            The heavy wingbeats like thunder filled his ears as Abraxas steered himself over to the broken galleon, on the highest branch of the treelike tower.  A man stood there, waiting.  He was big and powerfully built, wrapped against the cold in a bloodred cape embroidered with neon colored serpents, a black cane gripped tightly between his gloved hands.  His deep green face was like a grinning corpse that someone had defiled with rouge at the cheeks, and he had a mouthful of green fangs and a single golden tusk.  There was not a trace of hair on him except for his curiously long and delicate eyelashes.  His eyes though were hideous, piercing the darkness with ever-changing flares of color, pupils stretching and distorting into symbols—numbers?

            Abraxas waited patiently.  So this was the new lord of the Forsaken Fortress.  He considered John very carefully, his eyes wide with something like recognition.  Then he spat and turned on his heel, limping back into his cabin.  With a single motion, Abraxas hurled John out and away, into the endless sea.

 

            John drifted in a state between unconsciousness and waking for hours.  Drifting, drifting, drifting.  The deathly cold of the water soon warmed with the heat of his body, becoming the soothing embrace of a mother, rocking her child to sleep.  There was a voice in his dreams, soothing, feminine, with a low, loving timbre.  _You are healthy and whole John.  Sound in mind, body and soul.  All of these broken things don’t know what it is to be thus.  They hate you and want you to be broken like them.  They can’t understand that a man should laugh, and a man should cry.  Be brave, and come to me._

            When the sun was less than a hint of rose-gold on the horizon, the sound of drunken singing broke into John’s dreams, and a soft paddling on the water.  “The Naygvy—Navy would never had—have, Sheikahs at sea, because they’re a buncha bitches—Holy shpit!  Shit I mean.  A boy in the water!  It’s fuckin’ destiny is wat.  What.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Law & Order sound] After weeks, we have at long last finished the first hour of gameplay *trollface*. I tapped this out really, really quickly. Hope you guys got your action fix with this one, because the next chapter is going to just be about buying a sail :P But Gamzee’s in it though.  
> I know what question is burning on all of your minds; who is the boat? Those of you who have not played the game; that isn’t a typo.  
> Chosen is a madeup place, the new Sheikah homeland in this story. Yes, Roxy has ninja ancestry if it wasn't clear.  
> I think John has a high amount of emotional intelligence. He’s often able to get to the truth of a matter, especially in person, hence his two very different reactions to Vriska, online and then off. Of course, that rarely happens in canon.  
> In proud Zelda tradition, I will be teasing John with everybody. You have been warned.


	6. A Windfall of Opportunity

            The first thing John saw when he woke up was a pair of enormous pink eyes grinning down at him.  “Rose?” he muttered.  The girl leaned back and touched her hair, also pink.  “It’s more generic pink with a little silver in it for body, but I like a man who knows his shades.”  It wasn’t Rose, but if Rose dyed her hair and made it turn up at the end like an old-timey model, and had eyes a shade lighter, and actually smiled instead of just giving little evil half-grins, then this girl would look exactly like her.  “I’m Roxy,” she said, pulling John up to a sitting position and shaking his hand enthusiastically.  “You must be Jade’s brother!  She told us all about you,” she explained.

            “You know Jade?” John asked, confused.

            Roxy nodded.  “We were cellmates in the Forsaken Fortress.  I just got away last night.  I wish I coulda taken the others…” she said, wistfully.

            “It’s okay,” John said.  “If you got out without help, it’ll be that much easier to get them out with help.”  He looked around.  They were in a boat, a long, sleek sailboat that might require at least two people to operate.  It was very, _very_ pink.  The boat was moored in a sort of cave or grotto, a high, triangular shelf of stone help up by wave-carved pillars.  It was grey outside, and looked like rain.  “So, you saved me?” he asked tentatively.

            Roxy nodded.  “Found you drifting in the ocean, looking mostly dead.  But mostly dead,” she said with a roguish grin, “means slightly alive.  A little shadow-based magic and you were good as new.  But it wasn’t just me though.”

            “I thought so,” John replied.  “Where’s the other person?”

            Roxy snickered, running her fingers through her hair.  “Don’t freak out too much—”

            Suddenly, the figurehead of the ship turned; the wooden stem somehow as sinuous and flexible as a swan’s neck, and it said, “hello!”  John flipped the fuck out.  “What the fuck is that!?”

            “ _The Princess of Pink Tentacats_ ,” Roxy said smartly.  “I’m Jaspers,” said the figurehead.  It was some kind of large cat, with a tall conical hat and a series of dangling tentacles where its whiskers should be.  They twitched eerily, and it mewled.

            “The figurehead _talks_?  Is it cursed?” John asked, reaching for his hammer.  “Should I kill it?”

            “I’m not a figurehead, I’m a boat,” said Jaspers, in a helpful tone.  The rudder began to swish excitedly and the boat rocked from side to side.  “Me and Roxy helped each other escape from the fortress.  Then we found you.  Something told me you’d be important.  Are you the new Hero?”  Her…his?—Roxy had called it "Princess" but it had a masculine voice—its voice was very soft and childlike, like it didn’t quite know what it was talking about, or it did know, but not how to express it in words. 

            John decided it wasn’t hostile.  “I don’t think I am,” John said slowly, taking his hand off his hammer.

            “That’s too bad,” Jaspers mewled.  “But I’m supposed to pave the way for the Hero.  Maybe you can help me?”

            “Can you help me get my sister back?” John asked.  “If you do, I’ll do anything you ask, I swear.”

            Jaspers meowed in the affirmative.  “But,” it paused, sounding unsure, “I think our two goals might just overlap.  Because the Lord of the fortress is our enemy.”

            “Of course he is,” John said with a look of determination.  He remembered the burning colors of the Lord’s eyes, filled with baseless hate.  “I don’t know what he did to you, but he took my sister and he’s been taking girls from everywhere—”

            Jaspers shook its head, closing its eyes as if entering a trance.  “Not just you and me.  He is the enemy of all of us.  Everything in the land, the sky and the ocean.  He would kill everything if he could, even strangle the heartbeat of creation and lock the void into a single unceasing moment, and he hates that he can’t.  It pounds in his ears every instant like a thousand cannon blasts and every breath that is taken is like a thorn in his eye.  His name is Caliborn.”

            Hearing that alien word filled John with an inexplicable sense of physical dread and disgust, shivering its way across his body.  It was a fitting name for the creature in the tower.  “The same Caliborn,” Jaspers went on, “who claimed the golden power for himself and fought the Knight in Hyrule, drowning the land in darkness.  He has returned and grows stronger with every passing moment, calling all evil to him from the corners of the globe, awakening the old gods who had passed away.  You will not be fighting for yourself or me or your sister, but for everything, everywhere, for all of time.  Will you still help me?”

            Voice shaking, Roxy spoke up for the first time in a while, cheerful mood gone.  “How do you know all of this?”

            Jaspers blinked, shaking its head and opening its eyes, looking around as if confused.  It smiled.  “I don’t know how I know!  I’m just a boat!”  John and Roxy both nearly fell over.

            Trying to keep a straight face, John agreed to his heroic undertaking.  “Okay, I’m sure this is supposed to be solemn,” he said, drawing his hammer, holding the butt of the weapon between his pals as he knelt.  “How’d it go again?” he thought, trying to remember.  He breathed deeply and stared down at the hull for a second before continuing.  “I vow to protect the weak and defenseless, to safeguard the helpless and do no wrong.  I will be without fear in the face of my enemies, and brave and upright that the Goddesses may love me.”

            Jaspers meowed contentedly.  “That’s the best thing a man can say!” Without ceremony, the figure head turned towards the ocean.  “To the Great Sea!  To adventure!”  With a determined expression, John sat down at the rear and grabbed hold of the tiller.  Roxy let out a whoop and struck an impressive pose at the front of the ship, grabbing hold of Jaspers’s neck and shouted, “Let’s kick that omnicidal fucker in the shame globes!”

            …Nothing happened.  “Um,” John asked, raising his hand.  “Jaspers?”

            The boat mewled in confirmation.  “Shouldn’t we…set sail?”

            The figurehead nodded.  “You should get right on that!”

            There was an audible smack as Roxy smashed her forehead on Jaspers’s neck.  “I’m so stupid!  Sorry John, I forgot to tell you, _The Princess of Pink Tentacats_ doesn’t have a sail.”

            John felt a sinking feeling.  “Where are we right now?”

            “Windfall Island!” Jaspers aid contentedly.

            The sinking feeling became more of a plunging feeling.  “That’s clear across the Great Sea from the Fortress!  We…we did it without a sail?!”

            Jaspers nodded happily.  Roxy followed suite, looking miserable.  “How long has it been?”  John asked as the plunging feeling transformed into an orbital-dropping feeling.

            With a very forced smile, Roxy said, “just a week!”

            The feeling evolved to its final stage by actually making John fall over.  Roxy shook him with one hand.  “There there Johnny, Jade still has twenty-two days before they take her to the top of the tower and she’s never seen again!”

            “How the fuck am I going to save my sister,” John said, regaining coherency, “and…the whole fucking universe too why not?  With a boat that doesn’t even have a sail?”

            “Don’t be stupid,” said Roxy.  “We’ll buy one!”  She reached underneath a bench and pulled out a sack.  It was filled to the brim with rupees.

 

            Windfall Island was dense with people.  The small, rocky island, nearly bare of trees, was home to the largest population of all the islands on the Great Sea.  With nearly two thousand people, it was one of the largest cities in the world.  It had been built in the early days of recorded history, soon after the sea had finished expanding and the land settled, perhaps even during the cataclysm itself.  There were few traces of the Hylian civilization here, but for the great gate, inscribed with the blocky, complex runes of the sacred tongue.  It was impressive, but there was no need for it; most of the city had been built up on the rocky crags, a natural barrier against attack.  There wasn’t even a wall.

            The buildings were tightly packed, growing vertically rather than horizontally, each home a peaked tower hung with pennants and ancient lichen.  The oldest were of ancient white stone, found nowhere else on the island, cut into smooth cubes and engraved with delicate whorls.  The newer buildings, those built in the last few centuries that is, were made of wood and brick.  Looming high above everything, the massive windmill spun its sails slowly and majestically in the breeze, easily three times taller than the tallest building.  Up on its hill, the city looked like a castle John had seen in a storybook once.  There were precious few castles left.

            Walking out from the shadow of the grotto, the two children made their way towards the gate.  Most of the island was pasture for the pig-herders; it was much easier to keep pigs out on the great sea than other animals that might require more food and care.  The main export here was pork, but the real backbone of the city was trade.  Tall ships from the distant west were moored in Windfall’s port, rubbing metaphorical shoulders with rib-sailed junks from Chosen and proud steamers from the republic of Calatia.  Windfall was equidistant from everywhere.  The marketplace of the world.  It would have been the easiest thing in the world to run around, looking at shops, befriending locals, or simply gawk at the metropolitan crush of people, but Jaspers had warned them not to play around.  Roxy grinned and grabbed John’s hand.  “C’mon, let’s go play around!”

            The first thing she did was buy herself some new clothes.  This took merely one hour, but John felt that he had lost at least five years off his life.  He tried not to begrudge her of course; she’d been wearing the same thing for a month.  “How do I look Johnny?” she asked, posing for him as she stepped out of the changing room.  She was wearing a long, tastefully embroidered blue tunic, a dark blue hood and matching tights, some black calfskin boots with short but pronounced heels, and matching fingerless gloves.  John wasn’t looking.  “Like a proud Sheikah warrior who is also fabulous?”

            In an uncaring monotone, John replied, “yes.  No.  Maybe.  Too green?  I don’t know.  If you like it that’s fine.” 

            Roxy pouted.  “I just need a domino mask to complete the look.  Then I would be so badass, like you have no idea.”

            “Wait,” said John, a thought suddenly occurring to him.  “You’re Sheikah?”

            “Duh,” said Roxy, rolling her eyes.  “With my complexion and my eyes and my ears, what the hell else would I be?  A troll?  Why would you even say that?”

            “Don’t you guys run around wearing black and assassinating lords and stuff?” he asked, confused.  “How’d you manage to get captured?”

            Roxy blew a raspberry.  “Oh suddenly you’re interested!  I thought you islanders all ran around eating dogs and communicated in clicks and whistles, but you clearly don’t, so obviously stereotypes are wrong.  We can’t have an entire ethnic group composed of ninja assassins.  _You_ ,” she said, jabbing at John’s chest with her finger, making him shrink back as if it were a dagger, “are a _racist_.”  She stormed out of the shop.  Then she stormed back in and plopped a purple rupee down on the counter.  “I’m taking this!” she snapped at the shopkeeper, who nodded hurriedly, before storming back out again.

            John ran after her.  “Shit, okay, I’m sorry, that was bad of me and—”

            She turned around and beamed at him.  “It’s okay,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.  “An apology, that’s all I wanted.  Besides,” she leaned in conspiratorially, “on a bright night in the big open spaces of Chosen, black just stands out against the moonlight.  Dark blue, that’s the color you want.”  She winked a big pink eye and backed away.  Grinning uncertainly, John followed.

            A thought occurred to John.  “So, most people who look like you are Sheikah?” he called after her.

            Roxy giggled.  “Yes John, that’s what an ethnic group means, a buncha people who look alike.”

            “But there’s not that many of you right?” John asked.  “I mean…did you ever hear of a guy who took his baby brother way far south?  Like, a really expert swordsman, or master smith?”

            Roxy shook her head.  “Can’t say I have.  I remember some pampered war-prince running away a few years ago, but that’s it.”

            “How old is he?” John asked, excited.

            “He’d be about sixteen now,” Roxy said, entirely uncaring that she had just ruined John’s hopes of finding out more about sensei’s past.  Roxy suddenly gasped and ran off towards a stall.  John hurried after.  “Did you find a sail?” he asked, excited.

            “Better!” announced, turning around and showing him what she’d found.  John stopped just in time to avoid impaling himself on the knife.  Dull grey iron, single-edged, very simple design.  “It’s perfect for throwing,” Roxy explained.  She turned back towards the merchant.  “Can I get like twenty of these?” she asked, playing with a strand of her hair and grinning coquettishly.  Within a few minutes, she had purchased the lot for a song.

            “What do you need so many knives for?” John asked as she sequestered them about her person.

            Roxy shrugged.  “There’s a million-and-one situations you might need a knife, especially when you’re out on an adventure!”

            John laughed.  “You’re on an adventure too?”

            “That was a joke right?” she asked sharply.  “Why would I even go through the trouble of matching with you if I wasn’t going to help?”  It took John a second to realize they were both wearing blue.  “We’re like, a team now,” Roxy announced.

            Carefully, John said, “I guess it’ll be useful having a… _not_ -ninja assassin aboard.”

            Roxy gave a stiff nod.  “Now,” she said, affecting an air of mystery, “would you like to be inducted into the dark and mysterious ways of the Sheikah?”

            John thought for a moment.  Then he nodded.  Roxy smiled.  “Okay,” she said, grabbing his hand again, “let’s go get your ears pierced!”

            “What!?”

 

            It had hurt like a bastard and bled everywhere, and now John had a dark bluish-purple ring stuck in his left ear, which was already beginning to swell.  The white fur had been stained an ugly brown around the wound.  “How did you even get me to do this?  Did you use your evil shadow-based magicks on me?  You did, didn’t you!?”

            Roxy laughed.  “Just shut up and drink your mocha!”  John frowned and took a sip.  It was good.  “Nah,” she continued, assuming a posture of repose, “It was just my feminine wiles,” she winked.  John wasn’t sure he liked her doing that.  She really was very pretty…. He looked away.  They were in a small café on the second floor of some building.  It was out of the way and gave off an aura of exclusivity.  Tastefully decorated with pottery and creeping plants, it smelled deliciously of coffee and baked goods.  The café was full of sailors at the moment, but not the rowdy kind; this place didn’t even serve alcohol.  “How much money have we got left?” John asked, still not quite looking at Roxy but more in her general direction.

            She produced her bag—John was unsure where she kept it—and rummaged around.  “Well, after my clothes, my knives, getting your ears done, and the café, we are at about…”she moved a finger a few times, as if counting.  “Seven rupees.”

            John sighed.  “That’s not nearly enough for a sail, is it?”

            A new voice spoke out now.  “Assuming that two young people such as yourself will have a small boat between them, a new sail will generally run you about eighty rupees.”  It was a tall troll in a red cloak.  His hood was drawn over his face, but his horns stuck out through the flaps at the top.  They were short and nubby.

            “Hi Karkat!” John announced.

            The troll growled.  “I’m not Karkat.  Listen to me.  You are Sheikah, yes?”

            John started to shake his head, but Roxy kicked him under the table and mouthed that he should play along.  He started nodding his head.  “Then you should be willing to accept a job for me.  There is a man who has been unjustly imprisoned, a purple-blooded troll.  You will release him.”

            “Oh is that all?” Roxy asked flippantly.  “That’s nothing for us.  We’ve got mad prison breaking skills.  Isn’t that right?”  She winked again.  John colored a little and nodded, trying to look tough instead of confused.

            “Good,” said the troll, dumping a bagful of rupees onto the table.  “You’ll get the rest once the job is done.”  And he stalked out of the café.

            “Well that was certainly lucky,” said John tentatively, “but why did he think I was a Sheikah?”

            Roxy pointed at her left ear, which had a similar earring to the one that had been brutally stabbed through John’s.  “Stuff like this is just going to keep happening, isn’t it?” John asked.  Roxy smiled and nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Cockney accent) Bit short, innit? Ah well, next chapter’ll be a long bugger to compensate. I’m kippin’ off for a week, later mates.  
> If this were a game, then John getting his ear pierced would be one of those decisions that affect the kinds of quests you get. The earring thing itself is based on the Zelda manga, where Link’s earrings a sign of Sheikah training.  
> I really want to convey two things that are only touched upon in the game. The unity between land, earth and sky is a recurring theme in Japanese media, including this game, especially with the introduction of the Rito (a race of fliers who live in a volcano in the middle of the ocean). Second, Hyrule is portrayed as something of an Atlantis myth, but really, towards the end of the game it starts to sink in that it’s much more of a POST-APOCALYPSE. I’ll touch upon that a bit later.  
> *Ahem* Roxy joined your party! A very capable ranged fighter, she uses throwing knives and Sheikah magic. Her puzzle solving skills are better than John’s, when sober. Hearts: 2. Magic: 10. Can JUMP. Attack power doubles when DRUNK. Has a slight CRUSH on JOHN, to which he is OBLIVIOUS.


	7. A Foehn Came Down the Mountain

            John and Roxy stood atop the stone promontory and looked out towards the north, surrounded by green grass, kept lush by the wet winter season.  Directly below them was the grotto where Jaspers sat moored, awaiting a sail.  “Chosen’s that way,” said Roxy, pointing off into the distance.  She said it almost as an afterthought.

            “Is it a big island?” John asked idly, his attention divided.  The stone monument right in front of him was nearly as tall as himself, and so ancient that the carven letters had almost been worn smooth.  Not that he could have read them; they were ancient Hylian.  He’d seen a gravestone once, in a book.  Most islanders buried their dead at sea; if they didn’t, there would soon be no room for the living.  “Bigger than this one?”

            Roxy giggled.  “It’s a continent John!  It goes on for miles and miles and there’s places you can’t even see the ocean.”  John tried to imagine it and found that he couldn’t.  Roxy stepped forward and leaned toward the monument, squinting.  “I think I can read it, if you want.”

            John nodded excitedly.  “Would you, please?”

            Roxy cleared her throat, affecting a pretentious and scholarly mien.  Slowly, a bit haltingly, either due to unfamiliarity with the language or because of the worn-out nature of the script, she began.  “…and I swear to you, that some among you will still breathe and tread upon the Earth when I return.  For I am the Oracle of Oracles, and all the shining lands you see around you are my dominion.  Mine are the flowing rivers and the rolling plains, the flowering woods and the high mountains.  Mine are the thousand-thousand hills of Hyrule, and…”  Roxy giggled.  “I can’t go on after that, the words are too faded.”

            John was suddenly conscious of the roar of the ocean in his sensitive ears, more so than he ever had been in his life.  Rolling plains?  Flowering woods?  A thousand-thousand…hills?  He stepped closer to the edge.  There was nothing, nothing but the great churning expanse of water, as far as his eyes could see, and farther; it was eternal and endless and beautiful, and it had never seemed so empty to him.  John’s throat tightened just slightly as the barest beginning of a thought formed in his head, that there might be something _irreparably_ wrong with the world he lived in.  He tightened his hood around his head and looked down at his feet.

            Roxy turned, big smile souring slightly.  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

            “No,” John lied.

 

            The new city jail was a maximum security facility with three foot thick walls of solid stone converted from an old lighthouse, half a mile away from the city on a tiny island.  Gamzee Makara was being kept in the old jail.  He was its only tenant, and the place was generally left unguarded.  The low brick building was at the edge of town, near where this forgotten Oracle had given his final sermon.  Dark smudges around the windows and a slight warping of the bricks spoke of a massive conflagration.  People said the building was haunted.  John was more chagrinned than anything to see the angelic-seeming Aranea’s handiwork.  “Shall we?” asked Roxy, offering her arm. John snorted and kicked down the door.  It broke easily.

            The ceiling was low, but the room was wide.  It smelled strongly of smoke, and their footfalls were muffled by the thick, black ash.  Odd mushrooms, some of which glowed an eerie blue, grew in the corners.  The wind streaming past the barred windows made a high, keening sound, like a mournful wail.  Something stomped around upstairs, releasing several trickling streams of ash with each step before standing still and letting out an ugly, burbling sound.  The two kids looked at each other.  John offered his arm.

            The far wall had been composed of cells, but the iron bars had corroded and warped to uselessness in the blaze, and were used only as storage.  Roxy searched through the heavy pots and crates, turning up a few rupees.  “I think we could buy a sail now, actually,” she said, smile huge, yet not reaching her eyes.

            John gulped.  “We did promise that guy—” the burbling sound came again.  John released a sharp stream of breath from between his teeth.  “That poor man is trapped in here,” he said, after a long pause.  “We’ve got to get him out.”

            Roxy sighed.  “I can tell you’re one of those hero types, aren’t you?” she said, resting her cheek on her palm.

            John shrugged.  “I’m just trying to do the right thing.

            “It’s worse than I thought…” she muttered under her breath.  Resignedly, she motioned to the corner and said, “I think there’s something under that crate.”

            Between the Sheikah not-warrior and the blacksmith’s apprentice, the heavy box was easily moved.  Underneath was a metal trapdoor that had been stained an ugly red-brown by the fire but was otherwise untouched, to Roxy’s consternation.  The burbling sound was heard yet a third time and a heavy, wet tread could be felt but not heard, as if muffled by a thick layer of ash.  The kids jumped down the hole as quickly as possible.

            The dungeons below the jail were a labyrinthine maze of narrow brick and stone passages, barely big enough to walk through stooped.  “Johnny, if I have to crawl, I’m leaving you to die,” Roxy threatened.

            “It’s not so bad,” he said, trying to sound brave.  Upstairs, something squished.

            The crude tunnels never got any narrower, but due to some illusion or trick of perspective, it became tighter and more and more cramped with every passing second. Roxy was not afraid of enclosed spaces, but John had never been in such cramped quarters, and he felt like he was walking through some monstrous throat, clenching and squeezing him down into an enormous stomach.  He imagined that he was going to be crushed, or worse, get stuck, and then he would never get back out.  He’d be trapped down here forever.  No, he would starve.  No, whatever that thing was that was following behind would find him, and….

            A hand rested on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.  John stiffened.  He turned, trying not to scream.  He saw Roxy, smiling reassuringly.  Hesitantly, he smiled back.  That’s right, he wasn’t alone.  If he got stuck, Roxy could help him out, and vice versa—

            Then something scurried across his foot and he did scream.

            Roxy screamed too, though more in abhorrence and disgust than in fear, because she had actually seen what it was; a rat the size of a housecat, bright purple with accumulated filth and mushroom spores.  In an instant, she had a knife in her hand, and an instant later, the rat was pinned to the wall through its chest.  The rat’s lower body hung limply while its upper body spasmed and twitched.  It dropped a purple rupee coated in gunk.  The kids decided not to touch it.

            “If that’s the worst there is down here,” Roxy postured, “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about Johnny,” she said, throwing her arm around his neck.

            John chuckled a bit forcedly.  He really did like Roxy, but she was a tad too chummy.  He’d have to talk to her about personal space, but sure as fuck not right now.  “I wasn’t scared,” he muttered.  “I was terrified!”

            Roxy laughed.  Then, her ears twitched sharply to the left as faint tinkling was heard.  The tunnel branched away towards that direction, and at the end of it was another rat.  In its forepaws it held a bell on a string.  Roxy readied another knife—

            And fell through the floor just as the trapdoor gave way below her.  John looked down into the abyss.  “Shit,” he muttered.  Rats chittered.  Something burbled just behind him.

 

            “Did you get the sail?” asked _the Princess of Pink Tentacats,_ wagging its tiller excitedly and sending up little sprays and clumps of foam.

            It took Roxy a moment to realize that she was floating in the brine in front of their talking boat.  Up above, there was a perfectly circular hole leading into thick, black darkness.  The boat mewled to get her attention.

            “Sorry your highness,” she muttered.  The foam fizzed and popped as it dissolved back into seawater.

            The figurehead turned its…head, as if confused.  “Why do you call me that?”

            “It’s written on your side,” Roxy said, pointing.  In striking Tyrian ink, big, happy letters in a blocky yet slightly curved hand spelled out the ship’s name.

            The figurehead looked at it for a full minute.  “I’m Jaspers,” it insisted.  Roxy rolled her eyes. 

            “I should be getting back up there,” she said.  Whispering loudly, she added, “I think John’s a little claustrophobic.”  She clambered aboard the ship and nimbly ascended the narrow stem until she stood atop Jaspers’ head, her feet to either side of its conical hat.  “Hey,” she asked, the thought having just occurred.  She turned her head down to look at it, arms crossed.  “Are you even a boy or a girl?”

            Jaspers thought about this for a full minute, shifting his head from side to side as it did so, shaking even Roxy’s Sheikah built balance slightly.  “I’m Jaspers,” it insisted.  Again, Roxy rolled her eyes.  Then she looked up at the hole, and wondered how to get back in.

 

            John made his way through the maze, hammer in hand.  He was somewhat ashamed to have left Roxy behind, but figured she would probably be alright.  He hoped.

            The ground underneath was thick with sludge, but stepping carefully, he could tell where the true floor was made of stone or of wood.  A wooden floor indicated another trap.  _Fuck_ rats, when did they become so bastard intelligent?  After some twenty minutes of fumbling through mushroomy luminescence and straining his ears till they almost fell off listening for the telltale burble, he at long last reached the center of the labyrinth.  There was a high, circular room of stacked stone, with a metal cage on a platform rising out of the muck.  It was empty.  “Goddamit!” he shouted, trying to throw his hood on the floor.  Sadly, it was attached to his shirt.

            And then something squished right behind him.  His ears picked up a vigorous burbling, like someone hyperventilating through a mouthful of prison sludge.  Slowly, John turned around.   That was exactly what it was.

            The horribly distended jawline revealed massive, tombstone teeth built for crushing bone, and the wedge-shaped mouth was locked in a permanent rictus grin beneath, black, hollow eye-sockets.  The monster’s flesh was pale as a maggot, where it wasn’t fetid the fetid grey of rotting flesh.  Its long neck attached to a trunk as thick as a bull’s chest, with puny crippled arms like a child’s, but bent at angles reminiscent of a plucked chicken’s wings.  Instead of legs, two pairs of impossibly long, lanky arms suspended it from the floor like a hideous spider, each huge, bony hand equipped with long fingers and ragged red nails.  Sludge dribbled from its mouth.  Burble, burble.

            John took a swing at its face.  Quick as lightning, one of the creature’s corpse-like hands caught the hammerhead in its palm.  Its wrist bent at a nasty angle with a hideous crack, but it held.  Another hand lashed out at John, and he leapt back just in time, turning a certain disembowelment into a few painful scratches across his chest.  He didn’t want to think about where those red nails had been.  He looked down at the floor and thought about it anyway.

            The creature suddenly flopped to the ground with another unsettling squish and launched a flurry of blows at John with all four of its hands.  John took swats at the flailing limbs with his hammer, but the monster was undisturbed by pain, and continued lunging with its limbs even as they snapped under John’s hammer.  He cursed himself for not being a better swordsman.  If he had been, sensei would have given him a blade, and he could slice off these things and kill the beast at his leisure.  Sadly, this was not the case.

            Then came a series of wet _*thunks*,_ followed by a slurred cry of “fuck you asshole!” and the monster turned its bulk around, releasing a hiss that sounded more irritated than anything.  Stuck in its back were five identical throwing knives, each one just a hair off from its spine, one lodged right in between two vertebrae.  Thick gobs of multicolored corpse-blood oozed from the wounds.  John took a running leap and aimed for the final knife, pounding it like a stake deep into the creature’s body, unleashing a spurt of ugly green.

            The monster bent double as if he’d cut it in half, and started spasming and flailing, pained hisses coming from its too-big mouth.  Roxy stood on the other side, a pair of bloody knives in her hands.  Face contorted in rage and disgust, she hurled them into the monster’s empty eye-sockets.  The creature twitched once, whole body bucking as if bounced from a great height, and landed on its side.  It lay still.

            “Are you okay, John?” she asked, jumping over a twisted tangle of arms to his side.  “It didn’t hurt you?”

            John almost said no, but he suddenly became very aware of the gashes in his chest.  They were shallow, but they were beginning to burn and itch fiercely.  Already, they were becoming very swollen.  Roxy swore.  “That is so infected John!” she leaned in while also turning her face, as if forcing herself to look at the wound.  “He better pay us enough for a doctor—”

            There was a wet ripping sound and the creature’s chest tore open.  John and Roxy screamed.  A hand emerged and John threw his hammer, but it went wide.  It was very fortunate that it did.

            A very wild looking troll with the horns of a goat in clown makeup dragged himself out of the monster’s chest cavity.  He wore a purple outfit complete with a disturbingly elaborate leather codpiece, and his mass of shaggy black hair was spattered and stained with the monster’s colorful fluids.  He stood, or rather unfolded his lanky form, and looked around with a beatific smile, gave a short bow, then tore off one of the corpse’s arms with the sound of splintering bone and screamed, swinging it wildly.  “EVERY MOTHERFUCKER ON THIS ISLAND DIES NOW!”

            John felt a pang, suddenly cold and numb, and nearly fell over.  Everything seemed to slow down.  A voice filled his head, soft and caring.  _You have very little time John.  Move quickly._   He became very aware of a canteen hanging from Roxy’s belt.  He felt a sense of confirmation, as if a voice in his head could nod in approval, and snatched it.  The troll was muttering something vile under his breath as he swung the arm towards Roxy’s neck, but he might have been moving through molasses.  John knocked the rotten thing out of his hand and rammed the canteen into the troll’s mouth, squeezing.  Thick, foul-smelling yellow-green liquid gushed down the troll’s throat.

            Everything snapped back to normal.  John staggered, and the troll fell backwards onto the ground with the squeaking of a rubber horn, looking extremely content.  “What is this stuff?” John asked, gasping.  He was beginning to get dizzy.

            Roxy laughed embarrassedly.  “It’s, um, sopor.”

            John was suddenly too tired to ask what that meant, but Roxy read the confusion on his face.  “I guess you could call it alcohol’s evil step-mother.  It will severely fuck up a human.  Trolls are strong enough to drink it, but it’s highly addictive.  Mostly they just soak in it to help them sleep.”

            John couldn’t help but laugh, even though it hurt his chest.  He wanted to ask why Roxy had it, but all that managed to come out was, “so…trolls literally go to sleep… _pickled_?”  It took Roxy a second to get it, but when she did, she went into a fit of adrenaline fueled giggling, just as John fell over unconscious.

 

            _They are trying to break you John.  Remain strong.  All things break, except the wind.  The starkblast shatters forests.  The squall is a scourge upon the damned.  The harmattan blasts and burns with dusts and cold.  All things quail beneath the fury of—_

            “Wakey wakey motherfucker,” said a dull, raspy voice, its tones and cadences jumping erratically.  John opened his eyes and saw the clown, unruly mop now tamed by a very odd, rounded conical hood.  Naturally, there were flaps for his horns.  Slowly, John reached for his hammer.

            “No Johnny, Gamzee’s a good guy,” Roxy warned from her position in a chair.  Her tone was extremely tired, and just a bit slurred.  It occurred to John she might have a drinking problem.  The three of them were in a clean, comfortable room that was a far cry from the dingy depths of the city dungeon.  “He knew where all the loot was,” Roxy continued, “we had enough for a room at this inn, and about fifty gallons of red potion to shove down your throat.  After the guy paid me, we can buy a whole fleet’s worth of sails!”  She seemed to be trying to feign enthusiasm.  John was touched.

            “How long was I out this time?” he joked, sitting up.

            “Just about seven hours,” she said.

            John nodded.  “This was such a waste of time,” he concluded.  “We should get going now,” he started to slip out of bed.

            “Hold on motherfucker,” Gamzee said, shoving John back onto the bed.  “I ain’t thanked y’all for getting me outta the monster’s belly,” he began to fumble with his belt.

            “Oh Farore no why—” John shouted as he panicked, trying to crawl off the other side of the bed.  Gamzee caught his foot with one hand.  “Check out this little miracle, motherfucker,” said the troll, voice low.  He hurled up a handful of confetti.  “Gamzee,” He threw up another with his opposite hand, “Gamzee!”  He leapt into the air and twirled with enough force that his image blurred at the edges and John felt the wind from his passing, “kooloo limpah!”  He made a three-point landing and segued into a backflip, shouting “become a _miracle_!”  There was a popping sound and the acrid stink of black powder, and suddenly Gamzee was wreathed in white smoke, holding something in his hands.

            It was a small yet bulky pictobox, fitted with brass and red enamel, with a silvery flashbulb in the upper-right corner.  The troll presented it to John as Roxy clapped.  “This little motherfucker here is special,” he leaned conspiratorially, “there’s a little firefly trapped in it and she _knows_ shit man.  Secrets about the world and the people in it.  You wanna know the name of your true love?”  His voice went so quiet that John could barely hear.  “You wanna know how she’ll die?  She _knows_ , motherfucker.  The little firefly _knows_.”

            He straightened himself and once again John got the idea of unfolding in his head; the troll was very tall and very long, his every movement was like some kind of big production.  The man belonged in a circus.  He flashed a grin, which might have been completely innocent or entirely unfriendly.  All John knew was that he had the biggest fangs of any troll he’d ever seen; the incisors ought to count as tusks.  Gamzee produced a bicycle horn in another burst of black powder (John scoffed at the cheap effects, thinking he could do much the same with just sleight-of-hand) and towards the exit, honking as he went, his curly-toed clown shoes flopping against the floor.  He produced a flatcap, flipping it onto his head just so he could doff it at Roxy (show-off, John thought) and slipped right out the door.

            “What do you think such a nice guy did to wind up in that prison?” Roxy asked, hiccupping.  She was swaying from side to side.

            “Probably freaked someone the fuck out,” John said.  “Or maybe they just decided his magic tricks were too bad to let him out into society.”  Roxy chuckled and fell back into her chair, asleep.  John sighed, getting out of bed, lifting the girl up and setting her down in his place.  He sat vigil in the chair until the grey winter noon.

 

            It felt like an eternity since he had seen Jaspers, and he was surprised at the amount of happiness he felt at meeting the smiling, ultra-pink boat yet again.  “Do you have a sail now?” Jaspers asked with childlike enthusiasm.  John nodded.  Within a few minutes, Jaspers was sea-worthy.  After some careful tiller-work on Roxy’s part combined with John straight up getting out to push a few times, they were out of the grotto and streaking across the water towards the east like a fish.  “Where are we going?” John asked as he hauled himself back aboard.  Jaspers was purring contentedly, enjoying the sensation of his body slicing through the water, and did not answer.

            “Oy!” Roxy shouted.  “John asked you a question!”  Jaspers mewled, tentacles twitching.  Roxy looked down, found a stray pebble, and threw it at Jaspers.  The boat turned its head and hissed, bearing the mouthful of nails it had for teeth, tentacles flailing dangerously.  “I’m sorry,” Roxy squeaked.  John chuckled under his breath, covering his mouth.

            “It’s okay,” Jaspers said, smiling again.   “We’re going, um….” It—he, John arbitrarily decided Jaspers was a he—cocked his head and thought a moment.  “Dragon Roost Island!  The trolls have something we need.”

            The kids waited a second.  Making a studious face, Roxy squinted and rubbed her chin.  “Go on,” she encouraged.

            Jaspers seemed surprised.  “Oh!  The hero needs something for his quest.”

            Another pause.  “And we’re going to get it…?” John asked.

            Jaspers shook his head.  “We’re not the hero!  We’re paving his way,” his voice was becoming quieter, his glass eyes glazing over.  “There’s something the hero needs, but it’s locked away.  There are three pearls, tokens of the goddesses, which serve as the keys.  They were entrusted to ancient bloodlines and scattered across the Great Sea, awaiting the day that they shall be put to use.”  Jaspers blinked, and his face returned to normal.  “The hero’s a very busy man, probably, so we should get some tedious things out of the way for him!”

            “Well when you put it like that…” Roxy muttered.

 

            John found he much preferred the sensation of riding a sailboat to that of riding a canoe, or a pirate ship.  There was a real sense of acceleration, without too much of the groaning and rocking that had made him sick aboard _the Grimdark_.  Jaspers’ prow cut a swath across the water, sending up silvery-white spray to glint in the thin, grey sunlight.  The fine droplets soon beaded John and Roxy’s arms, coating them in miniscule silver pearls.  They tried not to move too much, or the droplets would shatter into ordinary water and the magic would be lost.

            Looming in the distance was the majestic bulk of Dragon Roost.  The great mountain was like a pillar rising up from the ocean to support the sky, so sheer no one would be able to climb it.  Without wings, that is.  Its summit was wreathed in dark clouds of bright embers and black ash, swirling around the peak, flashing with occasional bursts of green and yellow.

            The trolls had once ruled the world, in the early days of recorded history.  They laid claim to the inheritance of old Hyrule, what little of it could be recovered, and their empire stretched from Chosen to the great ice flows of the south.  Only the hermit kingdom Labrynna behind its great wall of water was exempt from conquest.  The god of the trolls was powerful and omnipresent, and his burning eyes scorched green leagues of desolation across the world.  But eventually, he grew weary of battle and plunder, and chose to remain idle on his mountaintop, contemplating deeper mysteries.  The empire withered without his help, as trolls didn’t breed fast enough to maintain it.  They would have been destroyed by their many enemies, if he hadn’t given one final blessing; the power of flight.  The last vestige of the once great empire was its fantastic postal service.

            A handful of bright-winged lowblood postal carriers skimmed across the water, hauling empty sacks.  Some waved a greeting at kids in their obscenely pink boat.  Jaspers meowed loudly in response, and one of them fumbled and nearly fell into the ocean before righting himself and flying full speed back to Windfall.  The others, who were slightly farther off, laughed at him.  The sun was starting to come out for the first time in a while, and it nearly blinded John, accustomed to the gloom.  Out on the open sea, everything was bright.  The sea about turned gold, and the flickering insect wings of the mailmen; red, tawney, gold and deep green, were like jewels. 

            Directly ahead of them, the water parted and a figure rose up and out, graceful as a dolphin, holding a golden trident.  A troll, but unlike any John had ever seen.  Her horns were long and curved gently away from each other, and she appeared to have fins.  He didn’t get a very good look, however, because at the height of her jump, she unfurled her wings, a nearly translucent purple and so delicate they shouldn’t have been able to carry her, and flitted off to the island.  The passel of carriers accelerated to keep up with the new troll and made formation around her, sounding on trumpets as they went.

            Roxy shook John’s shoulder.  “Dude!  I think we just saw the Empress!”  She touched her face.  “I think the Empress splashed me just now when she breached!  OMDNF!”

            John raised his eyebrow.  “Have you been drinking?”  She didn’t answer.  “When did you even have time?”

           

            Eventually, they reached the island.  The mountain was so massive that it had seemed a lot closer than it had actually been.  It was now late afternoon, and the sun was setting across the ocean, but here at the foot of Dragon Roost, the light was dingy and brown.  The clouds above looked sick and angry, unnatural.  There were no docks here, as the trolls discouraged visitors for their own safety, but their love of rugged individualism meant it was not strictly forbidden.  John and Roxy ran Jaspers ashore, and John stuffed the sail in his warchest to prevent theft.  “It really is handy,” he said.  Finally noticing the inclement weather, he asked Jaspers about it.

            The boat stuck his wooden tongue out, thinking.  “The guardian of this island is angry.”  Just then a resounding boom of a roar filled the air, a thousand times louder and more fearsome than anything John had ever heard.  Carrying on for more than a minute, it shook him to his bones, and up above, the clouds began to part revealing white light at the summit so bright and piercing that he was momentarily dazzled. 

            “Shit look out!”  Roxy shouted, pushing him to the floor.  The sound, almost like a physical object, barreled down the side of the mountain, cracking stone with its passing and warping the air.  It slammed into the ground and splashed away in all directions, sending rocks flying and bending the palms so far it was a wonder they didn’t break.  Rising to his feet, John brushed himself off, helped Roxy up, and, shielding his eyes, muttered, “What the flying fuck?”

            “Pyralsprite is very powerful,” Jaspers said helpfully.  “The trolls probably won’t just let you have the pearl, and you might have to do something dangerous to prove yourself.  With Pyralsprite angry, you’ll need magic just to survive.”  Jaspers’ eyes went wide and he began to cough, wooden lips pulling back over iron teeth, tentacles stiffening.

            “Are you oka—?” John began, but was interrupted by a wad of phlegmy wood-pulp and barnacle shells smacking him in the face.  It was Roxy’s turn to laugh at him.

            Slowly, John wiped off the glob of detritus and cleaned himself off with a handkerchief.  As he was cleaning his glasses, Roxy noticed something in the pile of gunk.  It was long and made of some bluish metal.  “Look, there’s a thing!” 

            John saw it.  Eyebrow raised, he asked, “can you get it for me?”

            Roxy blew a raspberry.  “Hell no.  No need for both of us to get filthy.”

            John sighed and picked it up gingerly, heading over to wash it in the seawater gently lapping against the beach.  It was a rod the size of a small dagger, complete with crossguard, though rather than having an edge or a point, it was shaped with thick whorls and knots, and John got the impression that a longer piece of metal had been somehow twisted into this shape.  It wasn’t moving, but for some reason John felt the need to grip it tightly as if it would squirm out of his hand and fly away if he didn’t.

            “Is that a magic wand!?” Roxy asked enthusiastically, leering at it over John’s shoulder.

            “Even better,” said Jaspers, “it’s a Breath Waker!”

            ‘From now on you’re going to explain new things right after you bring them up, instead of waiting for a prompt,” Roxy said warningly.

            Jaspers made a low sound between a purr and a giggle.  “People used to worship the gods with music.  Each god has an instrument that is sacred to them and makes them the most happy to listen to.  Sometimes everyone would get together and play, and one person would lead them.  He would point with the Breath Waker and they would follow his instructions, and together they would work the strongest magicks!  But a strong Breath Waker didn’t need other people, the winds would sing along with its instructions.  That Breath Waker,” Jaspers said, pointing with a tentacle, “was forged by the smith-god from a little wind and given to the king of Hyrule way back in the beginning.  It’s special.  It can play the wind, and so much more.”

            John lifted the instrument reverently.  This was amazing.  Up until now, he had thought, deep down, that wouldn’t be able to stand up to Caliborn.  That thing was the Emperor of all Evil, an ancient sorcerer that made war on the gods, and John was just some blacksmith’s apprentice from the ass-end of nowhere.  But now, he had an edge.  He could play the wind.  “Alright,” he said, beaming.  “How does it work?”  John’s blue eyes locked eagerly onto Jasper’s orbs of pink glass.  His guide blinked his wooden lids and mewled.  “I don’t know; I’m just a boat!”

            Ah.  John was doomed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have returned! Comic-Con was glorious, but now I am back and my creative juices are flowing quite squishily.  
> That gravestone does fuck all in the real game. It’ll be important here.  
> The climate of the Great Sea is Mediterranean this far north, so winters are cloudy but unusually green sense most of the precipitation is water rather than snow. It snows in Chosen, Labrynna, and Holodrum though.  
> Dead Hands do not appear in Wind Waker, the jail is something you’re supposed to be able to do in like, a minute. The creature was frankensteined out of the bodies of the dead prisoners, both troll and human, by whom we may never know. We may also never know the identity (Kankri) of the man who hired them, or why (he’s not useless in this world because he actually has a cause to champion). Oh look, John’s hearing voices again.  
> I figured out around the time I was writing the first chapter that fusion should just be about taking X characters into Y setting just because they’re similar. It’s the little differences that make a story, the contrast between what main character X would do versus what character Y actually did. I’ve wanted to novelize Wind Waker since I first played the game, and even composed the first few pages of an epic poem back in sixth grade (I’m reasonably sure it was utter trash), but there’s no point in telling the same story twice. I’m going to fuck with it. Fear not, you’ll know when we’ve fallen off the rails. We’ve just sort of stuttered here and there so far.  
> John is a bit more insecure than in canon. This is because his only yardstick for success has been the Strider family. That’d be bad for anyone’s self esteem, and we’re lucky he’s taking it so well.


	8. Upwards Avalanche

            There was very little to do on Dragonroost Island, at least the parts of it that were sea-level.  Since most of it was vertical, the only place for the kids to go was up.  A path cut into the side of the mountain wound upwards into a tunnel.  Passing through it, the pair found a splendid view of the great sea, but looking up, they could see a maze of scaffolding and artificial caves.  It seemed the trolls had, in fact, built piers and harbors, but ones that led out into the air.  No enemy would ever be able to land easily on this isolated pillar of stone.  And even if they did, the trolls were no strangers to warfare.

            Another booming roar shook the air, the mountain itself.  A splintering sound issued from one of the flying piers.  John and Roxy looked at each other, and hurried up the path.

 

            The trollish city was dominated by an enormous, egg-shaped chamber, a natural bubble in the volcanic rock that had been expanded and connected to other tunnels until it served as a great central hub. The space was full of movement, and the fact that trolls were fully capable of travel in three dimensions made it all the more frantic.  John and Roxy spent some time just trying to take it all in and simply get oriented.  The trolls, for all their seclusion, simply ignored them for the most part.  As soon as the kids decided to go and ask someone for directions, who should appear but Karkat?

            He swooped down from the ceiling, spots of red in his eyes and an angry crimson teardrop scar on his cheek, and hugged John tightly.  “Egbert you stupid, wonderful kid!” he shouted, shaking John profusely.  “I had to tell your Nana that you were killed and here you suddenly turn up with—”

            Karkat looked at Roxy, who smiled and waved politely.  “WITH A GIRL!  Oh Nayru, you finally became a man too!”  He straightened up and composed himself.  “Have you eaten?  How’d you even get here?  Whatever, you can tell me on the way back to Outset—”

            “Karkat it’s nice to see you too,” said John, “But we’re not going back to Outset.  We’re going to get the pearl!”

            “What pearl—” Karkat’s eyes bulged out of his head as he suddenly understood what John was talking about.  “You think you can just waltz in here and take Din’s Pearl?  Firstly, ‘oh shit Karkat, what happened to your face?’  Well your Nana only branded me with the rusty spoon instead of murdering me like I’d thought, thanks for asking.  Secondly, you’d have to talk to the Empress about the Pearl and if she doesn’t have you fed Pyralsprite you would consider yourself lucky.  It’d be a goddamned miracle if she even let you _see_ the Pearl, much less take it!  And you think she’ll just want to see any random country bumpkin visitors that wash up on her island?  Especially a pair of stupid looking kids?  You’re out of your fucking mind—”

            “Hey Karkat,” a voice called from above, “Who’s that?  Visitors?  _Kids_!  I want to see them!”  And with that, the troll they’d seen leaping out of the water careened down from the ceiling, golden trident in hand, huge grin revealing shark-like teeth.  She squealed with delight.  “They’re adorable!” she said, pinching John’s cheek.  She saw Roxy and gasped.  “This one’s even cuter!” she said, ruffling her hair.  Both of them were too stunned to properly react.  “I love kids,” she said.  “I love going into the brooding caverns and picking out the runty wigglers and nursing them to health.  They grow up so nice and grateful!”  She turned and pinched Karkat on his unscarred cheek.  “Like you Karkat!  Big sweetie!”

            “Your majesty,” he said, turning bright red, “Stop embarrassing me in front of the other species.”

            The Empress giggled.  “Stop with that majesty garbage; you call me Feferi.  _Right now_.”  She turned to the kids and smiled, taking care to show less teeth this time.  “Poor Karkrab here was so sickly that none of the lusii wanted him.  All the grownups had to take turns raising him, because he was the _meanest_ little wiggler!  And now he’s the meanest troll.”  She winked.  “Or so he claims!  So, what can I do for you?”

            Well she seems nice enough, John thought.  Maybe we can—

            “Can we have Din’s Pearl, your Majesty?” asked Roxy, flashing a winning smile and fluttering her eyelashes.

            Feferi stood up straighter, a pensive look on her face as she rubbed her chin.  “Well, I can certainly let you see it,” she said tentatively, “but actually taking it?  You’d have to ask the Prince.”

            “Um, excuse me,” said John, “but I thought you guys didn’t have kids, or at least not in the same way as humans?  And that there weren’t any male royalty ever?”

            Feferi laughed it off.  “It doesn’t mean quite the same thing in our language,” she said.  “The Prince’s ancestral line has been charged with the Pearl since the beginning of our civilization.”  She leaned in, bending slightly to look John in the eye.  “He is the spiritual center of our people just as I am the political center.  The Prince is our connection to the Creatrices, our source of Hope.  Go and see him!  I give you my permission.”  She sighed deeply.  “Our current Prince is young, as young as you are, but he’s not quite so well behaved, and he’s been very troubled lately.  See if you can talk a little sense into him, eh?”

            “What exactly is his problem, uh, ma’am?” said John, wishing he knew how to behave in front of an Empress, even as friendly and matronly an Empress as this one.

            She sniffed angrily, her first display of purely negative emotion.  “He’s of age to go and visit Pyralsprite on His roost, but the Prince refuses.  If he doesn’t do it, he’ll never have his wings and he’ll never be able to properly be a troll.  Forget about the connection to our God or the political ramifications; how’s he even going _to get around_ for Din’s sake!?”  She tapped the floor with her trident, and the ground cracked underneath.  “Without receiving a scale from Pyralsprite,” she explained in a much calmer, almost defeated tone, “he can’t grow his wings.  Every one of us has to do it, or we’d die out!”

            John nodded his head slowly.  “Okay, we’ll talk to the Prince for you.”

            “Oh, one more thing,” said Roxy.  “Can I have your autograph?”

 

            A few minutes later John and Roxy were striding down a long, dim corridor leading deep into the mountain.  Even though they knew objectively that they were far above the water, the sense of weight above them made them feel as if they were miles underground.  “The Empress was, uh, surprisingly nice,” said John, trying to make conversation in the gloom.

            Roxy was grinning at her piece of paper, proclaiming in big, loudly pink letters “H.I.C. Feferi Peixes, Third of that Name, by the Grace of Din and of Pyralsprite, Empress of all Trolls and Queen of Dragonroost, _fidei defensatrix_ , etc.,” followed by a smiley face.  She nodded enthusiastically.  “Let’s hope the Prince is cool too!”

            “Aren’t we, uh, supposed to talk some sense into him?” John asked.  He was admittedly a bit off balance after having met the last bit of royalty in the world.   And now he was going to meet a ‘spiritual leader’.  The end of the corridor had an odd door woven from thrushes and reeds, shaped vaguely like a bird’s face, heavily stylized.  John knocked.  There was a muttered ‘come in’, and John and Roxy went inside.

            The Prince was a young troll, as promised, with fins and gills on his face just like the Empress.  His horns were sharp and crooked, shaped like thunderbolts.  He had a big violet cloak with a high collar wrapped around him tightly, like a blanket.  A huge white seahorse with manic eyes was resting its head on his lap, and snorted at the new-comers.  Its coiled tail unwrapped for a second and thumped on the floor, then coiled again.  The Prince was just as young as they, if not younger, and lacked the wings that were so characteristic of his people.  John had never seen a young troll before, and noted some other, smaller differences.  His eyes, obscured as they were behind thick glasses, were grey, completely lacking the usual bright colors.  His skin was much lighter than an adult trolls’ as well, and there were probably other differences, but more importantly was the enormous jewel that the Prince was hugging to his chest as if it were a stuffed bear.

            Din’s Pearl was perfectly spherical and glowed with a deep, inner light, serving to illuminate the chamber in the place of torches or candles.  Cradled as it was in the Prince’s arms, he cast a long shadow.  The Pearl was burnt orange in color tinged with bright red, and had a dark red imperfection on the side facing John that remarkably enough resembled some obscure pattern, like a stylized wind blowing across the ball, or a rippling banner with three bars.  It was beautiful, and John knew that he was looking at something truly priceless for the first time in his life.

            “What do you want?” the Prince spat.  His teeth were just as sharp as the Empress’s, but seemed the wrong shape for his mouth; he slurred his words and stuttered just slightly on the ‘w’.

            “My name’s John Egbert, your Grace,” said John, bowing slightly from the waist.

            “And I am Roxanne Lalonde,” said Roxy, exhibiting a perfect curtsy, rolling her ‘r’ elegantly.  John raised an eyebrow; something about that seemed off but there wasn’t any time to think about it now.

            “That doesn’t explain anything,” the Prince snapped.

            “Forgiveness, your Grace,” Roxy said smoothly.  “We’re here to collect the Pearl.  The time has come for it to be used.”  John’s eyebrow climbed a bit higher on his forehead.

            The prince scoffed.  “At least you’re not here to try to talk me into goin’ up there,” he pointed vaguely upwards.  “I mean, I know I have to do it someday.  But for the love of Din, why all this pressure _now_ , when Pyralsprite is goin’ fuckin’ insane?!”  As if to punctuate his remark, the mountain shook and rang like a great stone bell.  Streams of dust fell from the ceiling.  The Prince clenched his teeth so hard that a little trickle of violet dripped down his chin.  John however, couldn’t help but chuckle.  Here was Roxy putting on airs to talk to royalty, while the Prince did his absolute best to sound like any street urchin.

            “Don’t laugh at me!” he snapped.  “It’s not like you have to go up there!  Look that _thing_ in the eyes and ask Him for a piece of Himself!  And it’s not like she ever did it either, not like this!  Not while He’s tryin’ to bring the whole mountain down on top of us!”  The Prince shook his head vigorously, trembling with anger now.  “Let me tell you what,” he said, “You go on up there!  Yeah, you with your fragile Hylian bodies; if _you_ can pull it off then I know there’s nothin’ for _me_ to fear.  I’ll admit I’m bein’ a wiggler then and I’ll march on up with my head held high!”  He held up the Pearl with one hand.  “And I’ll give you this too.  And that’s the only way you’ll ever get to touch it, that’s for sure.”  He pointed out the door.  “Now get out.”  The seahorse burbled menacingly.

 

            “Well that was a disaster,” said John as they walked out the door.  “I don’t think that guy has his head on straight.  Like he’s liable to snap and go on a killing spree if someone doesn’t give him a good ass-kicking to teach him that other people matter.”

            Roxy nodded.  “It’s too bad too.  He’s probably a nice guy under all the bullshit.  He just deals with his problems in the worst way possible.  I don’t even want his autograph.  Yet.” 

            As they emerged from the tunnel, they were greeted by another young troll, though her wings were fully visible; light red tinged with pink in the shape of a monarch butterfly’s.  She had a bright smile with refreshingly human teeth, and might have been human in appearance if not for her long, deep red eyelashes and the horns that curled almost all the way around like a ram’s, emerging from appropriately shaggy head of black hair.  “Wow,” she said, looking intently at John, “you really do wear a bright blue sock on your head!”

            John pulled on his hood self-consciously.  “It’s not a sock,” he muttered, ears drooping.  “And I wouldn’t even call this color ‘bright’.”

            “What do you mean by that?” asked Roxy defensively, stepping in front of John, ears lying flat in hostility.

            “Oh, Karkat told me a little about you,” said the troll with a dismissive gesture.  “You’re John Egbert and you went on an adventure to rescue your…sister?”  She cocked her head to the side, dense locks of hair bouncing.  “I guess that’s sort of like a mandatory Moirail for life?  We thought you were dead, but you’re clearly not!  Let me guess, Eridan told you to go climb the mountain for him?”

            “Does he do that to everybody?” John asked.

            The girl laughed.  “No, just me.  I _was_ going to do it, but he’s right about one thing, actually.”  The mountain rang again, louder than before.  A few small rocks tumbled down from the ceiling along with the streams of dust.  “It’s way too dangerous.  The Empress is wonderful and progressive, but progress takes a long time and she still doesn’t _quite_ understand when something might be too much.”

            She took a step forward and John felt himself shrinking back a bit.  “Don’t tell anyone this,” she said, “because the Empress and I are the only ones who know, but Pyralsprite is holding his handmaid captive.  The Empress thinks He might even have eaten her by now but I don’t think so,” she didn’t seem particularly concerned.  In fact, her smile widened.  “I’m her apprentice, and now it’s my duty to go and rescue her, and calm Him down if she’s not alive.  I think we can help each other!”  She extended a hand.  “My name’s Aradia Megido by the way.  What do you say?”

            “Um,” said John.  There was something unnerving about the girl, to be sure, but come to think of it all the trolls here were somewhat odd.  Maybe Karkat and the other mailmen were just more used to humans and suchlike.  “Well, I don’t know—“

            “You can’t get up there without me,” she said, expression becoming quite a bit more serious.  “The Empress let you see the Pearl and that’s one thing, but going to see Pyralsprite is another thing entirely.  The only way up the mountain without wings is from the inside, and outsiders aren’t allowed in there at all!  I know a secret way in, and I know my way through the caverns.  You _need_ me.”

            “But why do you need us?” asked Roxy, squinting appraisingly at the troll.  “You can just fly up there, can’t you?  What’s in it for you?”

            Aradia grinned and flapped her wings.  They rippled and swayed arrhythmically, rather than the strong, steady fluttering beat that John had grown accustomed to seeing on trolls.  “It takes a while for the wings to grow in properly,” Aradia explained.  “And it’s taking me longer than it should.  I can’t fly up there any more than you can, and it’s too dangerous for either of us to go alone!”

            John looked at Roxy.  She frowned slightly, but shrugged.  It was all up to him.  Aradia’s eager grin had not faded, but there was a strong sense of manic determination burning behind her eyes.  John took a deep breath and extended his hand.  “Okay!” he said, shaking Aradia’s hand.  She shook it enthusiastically, squeezing John’s hand so hard the bones ached.  John felt, once again, the approval of some invisible presence.  Maybe there really was some higher power on his side.

            “This is great,” she said.  Whispering, she added, “You won’t regret it.  Meet me by the spring in one hour, okay?”

 

            High above, the angry grey sky surged and swirled like the ocean in a storm.  The wind howled over the top of the little circular valley, likely as not a crater from an ancient eruption; the whole thing was like a gigantic stone flute, and the sound fluctuated from a deep, surging roar to a high keening cry that hurt the children’s sensitive Hylian ears.  There was a deluge not of water, but ashes and embers that settled on the ground like snowflakes, sizzling for a second and the fizzling out.  The ground below their feet was ruddy-brown and cracked, with occasional spots of colored dust.  To John’s right was a sickly grey looking puddle of steaming water, an enormous pillar of rock rising up out of its center.  It smelled vaguely of sulfur and minerals.  This was the spring, or rather where the spring came up to the surface.  The trolls siphoned hot water right out of the ground through a complex series of pipes and pumps; the fact that Pyralsprite’s fury had stopped up the spring’s only natural outlet had not impeded them much.

            Aradia was running late, and John and Roxy were bored.  There were no interesting shops in the troll city, surprisingly enough, and they’d merely had to ask directions to get here.  The entrance was a carved doorway on a ledge ten feet above them with a ladder down to the valley floor, and it seemed there had once been a bridge to another ledge directly across from it.  Other than the spring itself, now blocked off, there was little of interest in the valley.  Brightly colored plants grew around the edge of the spring, John noticed; neon green leaves tipped with brightest red, huge, succulent looking fruit, luminescent blue, ringed with tiny white flowers, grew in the center of each plant.

            “Those look kind of tasty,” said Roxy, eyeing the fruits greedily.

            “Do you want me to cut some for us?”  John asked.  He stood up, stretching, and produced a pocket knife before Roxy could even voice her emphatic ‘yes’.  He approached, knife in hand, and selected the fattest, juiciest looking fruit.  John bent down, raised the knife, and—

            There was a resounding crack as something sinuous and metallic smacked the knife out of his hand.  John turned and saw Aradia, looking both terrified and exhilarated.  She was now wearing a baggy red outfit under a brown leather coat and a wide-brimmed hat, and was holding a bullwhip woven out of steel cables, currently spanning the distance between herself and John.  “I just saved your life,” she said.  “Awesome!”

            John pointed at the glistening fruits.  “So, I take it these are poisonous?” he asked.

            Aradia shook her head.  “They’re explosive!”

            “Bullshit,” Roxy accused, “that’d be pretty neat though.  But sadly impossible in this world of talking boats and flying people with candy-horns.”

            Aradia unconsciously touched one of her horns, looking sad.  “They’re not candy.  They taste like sulfur.”  She assumed a more authoritative stance.  “John, move out of the way,” she said, pulling hard on the whip.  John ran back over to Roxy as Aradia brought the weapon crashing down onto the fruit.  It seemed to flash white for a second before blossoming into fireball as wide around as John was tall.  An instant later, the other three nearby fruits likewise erupted into a fiery holocaust.  When the smoke cleared, the stone pillar in the center of the pool was considerably thinner and covered in scorch marks.  A stiff gale managed to blow itself into the little valley just then, buffeting the kids, spraying droplets of warm water into the air, and knocking over the stone.  A huge gout of steaming grey water burst into the air, pressure having been building up for weeks now, and the pool quickly began to expand. 

            Roxy whooped with joy and clapped.  John rubbed his chin.  “How high did the water level used to be?” he asked.

            “A few inches below the bridge,” said Aradia.  “It’s not really a problem though, we can just walk back to the door.”

            “That’s true,” said John, “but people are going to get suspicious, aren’t they?”

            She nodded.  “I have a plan.”

 

            A few minutes later John was standing on top of an unstable pile of rubble holding Aradia above his head.  She was crouching on his shoulders with her knees next to his ears and had her arms forward and wings outstretched.  “I strongly disapprove of what I’m seeing here,” said Roxy.  John’s face burned as she shifted slightly and her legs pressed into the sides of his head.

            “When the wind picks up,” Aradia said, ignoring her or perhaps simply not caring, “throw me!”  At that moment the gale caught her wings and nearly wrenched her out of John’s grasp.  Aradia shouted “go!” and John threw her.  She gave a few unsteady beats to gain a smidgen of height and settled into a clumsy glide.  She was a third of the way there when the wind shifted and slammed her into the side of the valley headfirst with a nasty crack.

            John and Roxy rushed down off the ledge, splashing across the valley floor, now ankle deep with water.  John noted the splashes of dark red blood on the wall as they reached Aradia.  “Look at all the pretty stars,” she said, snickering as she pointed to some space right in front of her face.  She made a swiping motion.  “Why can’t I grab you?  Cheep cheep….”  Aradia turned her head and John saw that she’d broken two inches off her horn and the stump was bleeding.  It was only a trickle compared to ugly gash just above her ear.

            “Roxy, do something!”  John said.

            “Er,” she muttered.  “Like what?”

            “You healed me right?” John asked.  “I remember you saying that you did, you used your magic on me!  Fix her!”

            “Okay,” said Roxy, sitting down cross-legged.  She cleared her throat.  “I neglected to mention that I couldn’t get it to work for a whole day.  Healing isn’t really my thing.”  But she sat, concentrating.  The wind roared and whistled.  The lukewarm water rose.  The geyser steamed.  Embers fell into the rising pool, then sizzled and disappeared into nothingness.  The shadows lengthened, stretching out like crooked fingers towards Roxy.  Subtly, imperceptibly, she redirected them, and the shadows wrapped themselves around Aradia.  She giggled, reaching for one, falling still as soon as she touched it.

            John was feeling apprehensive.  This was how Roxy had allegedly saved his life?  Aradia looked more dead now then alive.  But he found that he trusted Roxy a great deal.  She wouldn’t try to hurt someone without cause or lead them astray.  The look on her face was something like someone trying to solve a very difficult puzzle, and then there was a slight twitch of her lip as the last piece clicked into place and the shadows burst apart into a cascade of colored squares and returned to their proper places.

            Aradia sat up and looked around, confused.  “Why am I all wet?” She asked, splashing the spring water with her hands.  She then touched her face, experimentally, patting around for something.  She touched the base of her broken horn and nervously followed the spiral of it with her fingers until she found the rough break.  It was no longer jagged, as if smoothed with age.  She screamed.

 

            A little while later once Aradia had calmed down, the three of them were preparing once again to throw Aradia.  The water was not quite knee-deep, yet.  “Let’s just wait and swim across,” said Roxy, sounding apprehensive.  “I don’t want Rae-Rae to get hurt again.”

            John chuckled.  “Is that what we’re calling her?  Also, you like her now?”

            “uh-huh!” she said nonchalantly.

            “I can do it!” Aradia said, fluttering her winds indignantly.  “I swear!  The winds seem random, but there’s a pattern.  We just need to go at the exact time they start blowing in the right direction and I’ll make it across.”  She seemed so certain that John was likely to believe her, but an idea suddenly struck. 

            He drew the Breath Waker.  “Okay thing,” he said to it, “I know a little bit about music.  Conducting the wind shouldn’t be too hard.”  He raised it high, point down, holding the hilt not like a dagger but like a pencil.

            Aradia leaned towards Roxy.  She and John were standing on their pile of rubble, but Roxy was standing in the water, as there was no room left on top of the crude platform, so Aradia was bent almost double and her hair got in Roxy’s eyes.  “Do you think John might be crazy?  He’s talking to a stick.”

            Roxy brushed Aradia’s hair out of her face, expression first annoyed and then delighted.  “OMDNF, your hair feels like a sheep!  That’s adorbs!  But no, John’s got a _magic stick_.  Wow, that sounded dirty,” she snickered.

            John tried to ignore the two girls laughing about him.  Dear gods, he’d gone from not knowing any girls his age to traveling with two of them, and they were both very pretty and didn’t seem to know about personal space and now they were talking about him—breathe.  Conduct.  Play the wind.

            A few brief passes.  In his head, it sounded like a simple, sad tune, the beginning of a requiem.  The sounds progressed from high, to medium, to low.  He imagined a chorus of altos and tenors following along, and he could swear he actually heard them, voices carried on the wind.  There was a feeling of uncertainty in the air, as if he’d started doing what he was supposed to, but not finished.  He jabbed the Breath Waker at the far ledge as if it were a sword, and was nearly blown off the pillar by the resultant gale.

            John laughed at his success.  “See, Aradia,” he said, turning to the girl, “it really _is_ a—”

            Aradia was not there standing next to him.  Instead, there was a huge, fat blue-green frog with a curling flange on his head, sitting on an acid green cloud.  “That’s a mighty fine wind you’ve got there,” he said, voice high and aristocratic, not at all what John would have expected coming from a frog.  “The finest I’ve seen a human make in ages.  Well, done, Breath Waker!”

            “Um,” said John, looking at the silvery-blue tool in his hand.  “This thing is a breath waker, I’m—”

            “Oh, it’s all one,” said the frog, gesturing dismissively with a huge, webbed hand.  “The wielder of a breath waker is a Breath Waker himself.  It is your instrument _and_ your office.”  There was a high whistling noise in John’s ears and suddenly the frog was behind him.

            “Where are my manners?” asked the frog.  “I am Zephos, god of the wind.  Charmed, I’m sure.”  John could only nod in agreeance.  “I suppose I’m here to give my blessing on your first successful Breath Waking,” he said, looking off into the distance, which was not actually quite far.  “The power you wield is a great one child, make no mistake.  The wind can be a good thing or a very bad thing, based on how it’s used.  You want an example of it being a bad thing, ask my brother.”

            The wind whistled again and Zephos was suddenly floating behind John.  “Cyclos, the storm god, that is.  He’s a bit miffed that the people don’t worship him anymore, at least not as much as me.  But well, things tend to change.  Before the cataclysm, he brought life-giving rains at the end of the dry season, and flooded the Zora River to fertilize the fields.  Now all he does is sink ships and kill fish.”  The wind whistled.  John was ready this time and turned around, but there was nothing there.  A throat cleared itself.

            John looked up and saw the bulbous, emerald eyes of the god-frog staring down at him, hanging upside-down from his cloud.  John yelped and fell off the rubble pile, landing in water high enough to float in.  Zephos continued.  “Next time you see my brother,” he said, whispering jocularly, “chastise him for me, eh?  He’ll be sitting in the eye of the hurricane and laughing like a lunatic, hurling thunderbolts like some menstrual prima donna.  Ciao!”  And with a veritable explosion of wind, tinted with emerald light, the frog, Zephos, flew off into the sky, cutting a temporary swath through the clouds and letting the sun and the blue sky shine in.  His laughter echoed in the little valley.

            “Whoa,” said Roxy, looking up at the gash of azure.  “Did you do that?”

            Aradia smiled to herself.  “It was so strong it knocked him off his feet!”

            “Yes,” John said tentatively, “that’s exactly what happened.  Now help me up!”  He decided that divine visitations no one else remembered were either meant for him alone or a sign that he was going crazy.  Both were good reasons not to mention anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s nobody who doesn’t love Aradia. Even people who hate Aradia love Aradia. Fuck you. *sigh* Now that there’s two female protagonists interacting with each other I have to worry about the Bechdel test. I’ll make them talk about basketball or something.  
> I recall having a billion things to say. I suppose you can ask me questions. Do it. Ask me questions. I fucking dare you.  
> ‘Why’d this take so long?’ Look at my profile. Look at all the on-going fics I’m working on. If I update a different one each week, it will take a month to get them all. Luckily I update a smidge faster than that.  
> Why am I so angry? I’m actually quite happy, who knows why my notes are so surly today.  
> Eridan. I usually write him pre-going fucking nuts, but this time I wanted him just there at the breaking point, at his whiniest, and not quite dangerous. Those of you who’ve played WW of course will know he’s going to be fixed instead of going on a killing spree. OR WILL HE???  
> The trolls’ ages are pretty variable in this story. Eridan is actually younger than John whereas Feferi has been Empress longer than John has been alive. Karkat’s about twentyish.  
> *Ahem* Aradia joined your party! Middle range fighter. Her whip can strike multiple targets, but is a very slow weapon otherwise. She has limited flight capabilities, and being a troll, is generally tougher than Hylians. She is a TECHNICAL PACIFIST and will generally not finish off opponents, MAIMING them instead. Hearts: 4. Magic: 5. Is subject to BERSERKER RAGE. She enjoys PUDDING.


	9. Updrafts

            Once safely on the ledge and un-concussed, Aradia lowered her whip and the other two climbed up it.  Squeezing through a narrow crack in the wall, they found themselves in an area open to the sky and the elements, but labyrinthine with high, jagged stones.  “This way!” she said, running off ahead.

            The way was not dangerous, but certainly circuitous.  From her body language, Aradia clearly knew where she was going, but the _path_ seemed not to, and John quickly stopped bothering trying to remember the way.  Once, they had to turn back, having encountered a massive, pearly-white, insectoid creature with moth’s wings, horns, and perfect pouty lips.  It looked at them with something like stern, motherly disapproval, and began scraping its pointed, spear-like feet on the ground like a bull, lowering its bulbous head.  Aradia, smiling nervously, said, “Back up, don’t act disrespectful, definitely don’t run or try to fly.”

            “We can’t fly—” John began to say, before Aradia covered his mouth with an audible pop.  “Well then don’t try it anyway,” she said, about as snappishly as John imagined she could say anything. 

            They finally backed their way around a corner, and Aradia led them as quickly as possible without running through a highly roundabout route until John was more lost than he’d been previously.  “The mother grubs are let out every few days,” she explained, red-faced from tense exertion, “to get exercise.  They’re not used to anyone except the Dolorosas—”

            “When you say mother grubs…” Roxy began, and then trailed off, not entirely sure if she wanted to know.

            Aradia smiled radiantly.  “That grub might have actually been my mom!  I mean, the one that laid my egg at least.  Who knows?  It’s exciting isn’t it?” she said.  Seeming to draw strength from the thought, she fairly bounced away down the path.  The Hylians looked at each other, shrugged, and followed.  “But hey,” she said, calling from up ahead, “if you see a bright white glow, like a star walking around on Earth, and _especially_ if it’s woman-shaped, _run_.”

           

            Only once, and that from a great height, did they see a member of the ascetic order that tended the mother grubs.  As the three sidled along the edge of the stony labyrinth, a stately figure in black and green robes ushered three of the huge creatures into a cave with a wave of something like a shepherd’s crook.  The shepherdess had her hood drawn down over her face, and brilliant white light spilled from inside, as well as from her voluminous sleeves.  Her wings were huge, velvety black and neon-green, gently folding and opening in idleness.  Aradia looked terrified, but led them on all the same.

            Eventually, they reached a cave entrance.  It was so dark inside that it seemed like a solid barrier of black between the intestines of Dragonroost and the world of light.  “Normally we’d go through a big entryway near where that Dolorosa was,” she explained.  “Carved dragons and depictions of the famous ancestors, a blessing from the Prince, a funeral dirge in case you don’t come back,” her smile widened.  “It’s a really beautiful ceremony!”  She stepped through the cavern mouth and disappeared from view, the slightest gleam of light shining off her smile before it disappeared, just a fraction of a second after the rest of her.  “Come on!”

            John and Roxy stepped through, and were immediately blinded as Aradia lit a torch.  She laughed at them, staggering in the gloom.  “Okay, that was a decent prank,” said John, raising a finger as he rubbed the stars out of his eyes, “but your buildup was lacking.  And you didn’t even get off a one-liner!  You could have waited for us to ask for a light, _then_ sparked the torch really nearby.  The surprise factor wouldn’t have been as high I’ll grant you that, but it would have been more timely and therefore funnier.  I guess I’ll rank this prankster’s gambit something like—”

            Roxy meanwhile, was bent double with laughter.  “Oh wow, you really got us!  That was good!  I’m gonna get you back though Rae-Rae, you’ll see!”

            “I can’t wait!” exclaimed Aradia.

            John frowned, irked that his sagely expertise on pranking and its subtle nuances was being ignored.  He took the time to look around the chamber.  It was fairly small, but there was a lot to see.  Ancient pottery along the far walls, cave paintings depicting an enormous serpent snaking across the walls and ceiling, painted in deep red and tinged with blue, mad spiraling eyes wreaking havoc on scurrying figures.  They lacked wings and horns, but were too oddly shaped to be human, he thought.  What’s more, they were painted dull ochre.  He spied little painted flowers that must have been the bomb plants from earlier, but like everything else, they were done in blue and red and ochre.  This painting depicted a world without green.

            Against the far wall were sitting a trio of ancient statues, squat toadlike figures with huge lips and beady little eyes, round bellies like drums and spikes rising from their heads and backs like horned lizards.  It was odd.  The trolls were the oldest recorded civilization, next to mythical Hyrule, but the people who’d painted this cavern and built the statues seemed even older than either of those.  And yet, John had never heard of anything like this.

            Aradia noticed him looking and sidled up to John without him noticing.  “The stone-men carved the tunnels,” she said, a little louder than her usual tone, spooking him out of his contemplation, “by eating away at the rocks.  Their shovel-like nails could scoop through the stuff like softest mud, and they washed it down with hot lava.  The whole city is just what they didn’t bother eating,” she finished, nodding smartly.

            John chuckled.  “Yeah sure,” he said.  “Let me tell you about the Great Fairy on Outset Island while we’re telling tall tales.”  Aradia laughed.

            “Well,” she said, “they may or may not have been real, but they definitely had secrets.”  She pressed her shoulder against one of the stone-men and with surprising strength considering her size but not her species, shoved it off to the side.  Behind it was a carved slot, presumably where a stone block would have been placed during a construction.

            “Found this place when my time came to climb the mountain,” said Aradia, sounding very self-satisfied.  “Everyone thought I’d died because I spent a couple of days exploring the ruins instead of, well, my rite of passage.”

            The kids crawled through the opening while Aradia told them about the pottery in the previous room; “it’s in the same style as trollish pottery from the third century but carved from stone and _painted_ instead of fired and enameled and it seems this  culture didn’t have the means of producing the color green because I have found no green artifacts and all depictions of plant life are blue for some reason and I was only joking a little bit when I said they ate rocks because judging from other cave paintings I found at base camp 04—” eventually stepping into a much larger cavern where the stone was oddly terraced, as if layered by the cooled magma of several different eruptions, each flow having stopped at different times.  But this room was lit by big, bright braziers at the corners.  It had been used recently.

            No, the room was being used right now, by a pair of green-skinned Bokoblins, one armed with a Bokowood torch and the other with a machete and shield, standing guard over a door at the topmost tier of hardened magma. John immediately drew his hammer and shield while Roxy produced a pair of knives.  Aradia however, rushed forward and made a polite bow.  “Hi,” she said, “I’m Aradia Megido.  Bokoblins eh?  That makes us distant cousins!”  She extended her hand.  “Pleased to meet you!”

            The Bokoblins were so stunned that it took them a full minute to react.  The one on the left bent towards Aradia and screamed in her face, that high pitched warbling screech echoing painfully in the small chamber.  He immediately cut off as a half-dozen knives sprouted from his chest.  His partner turned to run, and almost made it to the door, only to be brained by John’s hammer.  “Aradia, what the hell?” he said, turning around to face her.

            “I’m sorry,” said Aradia, “I thought I might be able to talk our way through this.  I don’t really like fighting,” she said with an embarrassed grin.  John’s jaw dropped.  She snickered.  “I know, I know, you got saddled with the only pacifist on the island!”

            Roxy rolled over the first corpse to retrieve her knives.  “You can’t really…reason with Bokoblins sweetie,” she explained as she plucked them out of the cadaver’s chest.

            Aradia sighed.  “I know, but you always have to _try_.”  She spread her arms.  “Who knows?  Maybe one day I’ll meet a monster who’s willing to listen.”  She twirled around in a slow circle, the hems of her coat and loose red top flapping around her.  “Anyway, welcome to base camp 01!  I set it up during my first trip up the mountain.”  John noted that the chamber featured a single tent and a fairly new cookpot as well as several wooden structures that had clearly been built within the last few years; the braziers, some railings over the higher ledges, wooden supports for the ceiling.  Aradia walked into the tent and came back with three canteens.  “Drink up,” she said, “there’s plenty more.  The Bokoblins must have just gotten here.  Once you’re ready I’ll get you some fresh ones and we’ll move on.”

            John took a sip and sealed it back up.  “No seriously,” Aradia said warningly, “things are about to get really hot.  You want to finish that.”  John felt a sense of impending dread and did as asked.

            The three of them walked up to the door.  It was made of a solid sheet of metal and seemed to radiate heat.  There were no knobs, handles, or hinges visible.  “How do we get through?” asked Roxy.  “How does this thing even work?”

            “I’m not sure how it works,” said Aradia.  “The only time I tried to take one apart I caused a huge cave-in.  But you can open them like this,” and she gave it a deft, unceremonious kick.  It slid upwards with surprisingly swift and easy movement.  John decided there and then to stop being impressed with ancient technology, because he was probably going to see a lot of it. 

            That was an instant before the wave of blazing heat smashed into him like a hammer as the cavern filled with an ominous orange glow.  Shielding their eyes, the kids made their way into the next chamber.  It was massive; the problem was the lack of ground that wasn’t molten.  Standing on a narrow ledge, they could look across a cavern that was as wide as the entirety of Dragonroost.  Far below, a sea of magma bubbles with blazing heat, almost too bright to look at.  “There are some great updrafts here,” said Aradia, looking down into the blaze.  “I could probably glide all the way to the top,” she trailed off, sounding very hesitant.  “Probably.”  Otherwise it was great spiraling path across narrow ledges to yet another door set in a recess that someone, somehow, and for some reason, had taken the time and effort to carve into the shape of a massive demon’s face, stalactites and stalagmites reshaped into hideous tusks.

            “Why would they do that?” asked Roxy, scratching her chin.  “Who would even see it in here?  What would they need to scare people away from?”

            Aradia shrugged, wooly curls bouncing.  “I don’t know why, but I know what’s in there.  It’s a volcanic sill!”

            Roxy nodded her head as if she understood, and then spoke, tone irritated and slightly menacing.  “I hope we don’t have the same problem with you as we have with our boat.  He never explains things that would be useful to know.”

            Aradia bit her lower lip as she thought.  “Okay,” she said.  “Pressure pushes the magma up through the throat of the volcano until the pressure is relieved.  Sometimes it gathers in hollows in the rock, bubbles left by previous flows.  That’s called a sill.”  She pointed at the demon face.  “There’s a big sill inside the demon’s mouth, and it’s so hot I can barely stand it in there, but I’ve explored it a little.  Base camp 05 is just behind the teeth, but I only used it once after setting it up.  There’s some kind of pagan shrine in there, probably built by the stone-men I told you about.  I call it the forge,” she finished, “because it’s shaped kind of like a huge furnace.”

            Wordlessly, they trudged on along the gently spiraling path.  Halfway up another recess in the wall hid a door leading off to who knew where, but they ignored it.  The path grew steep with time, and narrowed to the point that they had to sidle.  “Should we link arms in case someone falls,” said Roxy, “or not, so they don’t drag down the rest of us?”  Aradia laughed.  Roxy muttered something about being serious.

            Eventually, they found a place where the path had crumbled away entirely.  Someone had bridged it with some flimsy wooden boards, not even securing them to the floor.  “I’m not crossing that,” snapped John, stamping his foot.  A bit of the brittle ledge crumbled and fell into the magma far below.  “There’s brave and there’s stupid, and this is bum-fucking retarded,” he declared authoritatively.

            The girls laughed at him.  “Look ahead Johnny,” said Roxy.  An enormous boulder had fallen onto the next ledge.  The path was completely blocked off.

            “This is such bullshit,” John muttered, as he began the long, trudging path back.

 

            Through the second door, John was pleased to find that it was significantly cooler.  Aradia fumbled in her pocket for a second until she produced a playing card, the one of pentacles.  She flicked it and it transformed into a lit torch.  “How’d you do that?” John asked, looking around the new chamber.  It was essentially a hallway, with a few large doorways that had been blocked off by wooden boards.  At the far end was another metal sliding door.

            “My brawlsoleum,” Aradia muttered, seemingly concerned about something.  “It’s a…tomby-thing that turns into a deck of cards.”   She pointed at the boards.  “Those weren’t there before,” she said, sounding happy at having figured out what was bothering her.  “The Bokoblins sealed off the alcoves in here for some reason.”

            John immediately pulled out his own deck and dumped the cards out into his hand.  Nearly all of them were blank except for three.  He chose the two of stars and flicked it like Aradia had, spilling the sail all over cave floor.  “How do I make it turn back?” he asked eagerly.

            She snickered.  “You get out your magical inventory and put it back inside.”  John frowned.  That meant folding the damn thing up again.

 

            While he was doing that, the girls went off into the corner and started muttering to themselves.  He supposed this was a girlish thing, because he and Dave had never gone off and giggled in corners while Jade did something, that was for damn sure.  Aradia looked up and focused her big eyes on him, smiling.  John almost smiled back, but then she covered her mouth to restrain a high-pitched giggle.  She turned back to Roxy and said something, and Roxy went as far as to laugh out loud.  Were they…talking about him?  John’s ears drooped as his face burned and he wondered if someone had opened the goddamned door because of how hot it suddenly was.

           

            “So basketball is played entirely on the ground?” Aradia asked.

            Roxy laughed, ears pricking up.  “Well duh, we don’t have wings!”  Aradia laughed at her own slip-up.  Briefly, she looked over at John, checking up on his progress.  Presumably his lack of experience with sailing is what was causing him trouble.  She was about to say something encouraging when the image of trolls playing the game jumped into her mind.  “Can you imagine Karkat playing,” she said, whispering so as not to distract John, “and just flying from one end of the court to the other because he cares so little about the rules?”  She snickered.

            Roxy laughed.  “That grumpy mailman?  He’d probably drop the ball right through the hoop and argue that it counts as a dunk!”  The two girls snickered. 

            John muttered something to himself and went on with his folding until he finally had the thing stowed away safely.  “Stop gossiping or whatever and come on,” he said, taking the lead.  As he passed in front of one of the sealed doorways, there was a sound of smashing pottery an instant before the boards exploded outwards, a common Bokoblin leaping through the splinters with a murderous gleam on his machete.

            The Bokoblin tackled John to the floor, crouching on his chest.  He raised his blade dramatically, and probably would have killed John had Aradia’s whip not come streaking through the air, flaying his sword arm open with a nasty crack.  The Bokoblin shrieked and dropped the machete.  John pushed off the monster and ran him through with his own weapon. 

            John found he didn’t like the sensation.  And odd thought to have, having killed a number of the creatures already, but the feeling of it sliding in, the wet squishing sound, the sensation of flesh parting, the way the blade vibrated as it scraped bone and tore through different textures of tissue, was so _brutal_.  He watched the light go out in the monster’s eyes.  Sure, smashing its head in would have been just as painful and twice as ugly, but it would have been faster.

            That’s what he thought; what he said was “I thought you didn’t like fighting.”

            “Doesn’t mean I don’t know how,” said Aradia, coming to look pityingly on the corpse.  “I hoped he would run away, tend to his wound, have a long hard thought about his life, and maybe start trying to communicate with people instead of trying to eat them.”  She sighed.  “Maybe one day.”

            The machete made for an excellent skeleton key, in the sense that the heavy blade was well suited to smashing through the wooden boards blocking all the alcoves.  Of course, the cheap metal was chipped and warped to uselessness by the time they’d finished.  “The smith probably thought that folding the steel made it stronger,” John sighed as he threw it off into the corner.

            “It…doesn’t?” said Roxy, eyes narrowed, ears perfectly horizontal.

            John shook his head.  “It takes out the carbon.  It’s how you turn shitty steel into good steel; by folding it just enough so it stops being a brittle mess and starts acting like metal.  If you fold it too much though, it goes back to being iron.  Really shitty iron too.” 

            One of the newly liberated alcoves contained broken pottery, over which Aradia was very excited.  The other contained a small chest with a heavy, silvery key.  John slipped it into his pocket.  “I was kind of hoping for rupees.  Even gold would have been nice,” he sighed.

            Through the door at the end of the hall was something John had not at all expected.  Cold.  Wind.  Sound.  Dazzling blue.  Dazzled by the new, or newly rediscovered sensations, he was unsure of what he was seeing for a moment until Roxy whooped with joy.  “It felt like I’d been in that hole for _ever_!”  Then it all clicked into place.  They were outside.

            John knew that they’d been going vaguely upward even when the ground seemed fairly flat, but this height was ridiculous.  He took a step and then another, but stopped because a third step would take him over the edge, plunging down into the churning sapphirine waters below, from which rose jagged black rocks like Charybdis’ teeth.  Slowly turning his head upward, he looked for the horizon, and couldn’t find it.  Off in the distance, the sea and the sky blended together.  The world was like a bubble.  He wondered where the dark clouds were.  Looking up, he found that they had either subsided slightly or had been much smaller than he’d thought.  Maybe Pyralsprite had calmed down some; who could guess?  There was probably a metaphor buried in here somewhere, John figured, or there would be if this were fiction and not real life.  The wind whistled in John’s ears, ruffling his hair like an old friend.  John thought he’d be able to understand its whistling, if he took the time to decipher it.  It could understand him, after all, when he played the Breath Waker.

            To the left was a narrow stair wrapping its way around the mountain made of grey marble bars rammed into the stone somehow.  “Did the trolls build it or was it your legendary rock eaters?” asked Roxy, half jokingly as she tested the first step with her foot.  It supported her weight, but she couldn’t be sure unless she stomped the shit out of it.  She did so.

            Aradia shook her head.   “The stairs are non-native stone.  The ‘rock eaters’ only ever made things out of local stone.  I think these are probably trollish, but we may never know.  Now move it!”

            The stairs were not fun to climb.  Marble is generally speaking very slick, even when it’s been out in the elements for centuries, and not a particularly hard stone to begin with.  The spacing was regular, but a bit too far.  Not enough for them to slip between the steps, but certainly enough for a toe to get caught and cause a stumble.  Roxy, bringing up the rear, nearly sent the three of them plummeting to their deaths after just such an event, and John nearly tore off Aradia’s left wing while grabbing hold for dear life.  “Asshole,” she muttered, wrapping them around herself like a shroud, cheeriness temporarily gone.

            At the top of the stairs was a rocky ledge, connected to another by a rope bridge in surprisingly good condition.  Beyond that was the metallic gleam of the ancient metal doors that peppered the structure.  Roxy was not afraid of heights, but she found herself relived to think that they’d be ‘safely’ inside soon, never mind that inside was the blazing throat of an active volcano. 

            Unfortunately, there was a ten foot gap between the original top of the stairs and the place where they ended now, the malleable stones having crumbled away to useless rounded stumps like rotted teeth sticking out of the side of the mountain.  John looked down, once again seeing the rocks and the churning water below.  They were much higher now than they’d been then.  “Now what?” he asked, rubbing his chin.  “I…guess I could jump it.  How ‘bout you Roxy?”

            “If I could get a running start,” she said, musingly.  “But I really, really don’t want to try running up these stairs is the thing.  Maybe I could finagle my way along the wall with my not-ninja training.”

            Aradia didn’t say anything, but she did straighten her hat, tilting it to a daring angle before pointing upward.  John looked and saw a rusted metal bar with a stylized claw at the end that had been roughly jammed into the stone. “I don’t get it,” he said, or rather started to say before Aradia hooked him around the waist and pulled him close.  His cheek was almost touching her cheek.  Her hair really did feel like wool.

            With a deft snap of her arm, her steel-cable whip wrapped itself around the metal bar.  “Grab on Roxy!” she shouted.  “This is my favorite part of mountain climbing!”  Roxy eagerly complied, squealing with joy as they swung across the gap at what John felt was a stupidly dangerous speed.

            Landing unsteadily on the other side, he let go of Aradia a smidge too quickly.  “Am I that unpleasant to touch?” she asked, pouting exaggeratedly.

            “Nah,” said Roxy, slinking over to his other side.  “He just doesn’t want you to know his _true feelings_ , so he got away from your smokin’ body as quickly as possible instead of lingering like he really wants.”  She put her elbow on his shoulder and grinned evilly.  “Isn’t that right, Johnny?” she asked, wagging her eyebrows.

            He twisted his way past the girls and stormed towards the bridge.  “Roxy, you’re fired.  We’re not on an adventure together anymore!”

            “So it’ll be just you and me?” Aradia asked, fluttering her crimson lashes.

            “He’s got that grey fever,” said Roxy, her arms crossed, nodding smartly.

            “Yeah!” Aradia agreed, “Grey fever!”  She turned to Roxy and whispered, “What does that mean?”

            John ignored them and made his way across the bridge.  The girls hurried to catch up.  The bridge swung steadily, rhythmically in the wind, not helped by the tromping steps of the tweens, and the ropes creaked disconcertingly as it moved, groaning like a dying old man.  And then, at the halfway point, the kids heard a now familiar sound; the shrieking, howling call of a Bokoblin.  He stood at the far end of the bridge, machete in hand.  With a rude gesture, he swung his blade toward the supporting ropes.

            Roxy’s knife whizzed through the Bokoblin’s ear, throwing off his aim just slightly so he struck a vertical rope and not a horizontal one.  Next, Aradia’s whip wrapped around his ankle and dragged the creature towards the kids.  “Listen up,” she said sternly once he was well within striking range, eyeing the blade still clutched in the creature’s hands.  “There’s three of us and one of you.  We have you on the floor of a suspension bridge thousands of feet above the ocean.  There’s a dozen ways for us to hurt or kill you without any harm coming to us, but the only way you can kill us kills you too.  So just drop the weapon.  We’ll let you go past, and you’ll let us go past, and we’ll all get to live to see tomorrow.”  She flashed him her biggest, brightest smile.

            The Bokoblin paused, as if considering.  Then with an even more obscene gesture than before, he swung his machete through the horizontal ropes on the left side.  The bridge bucked and then fell.

            “You stupid asshole!” Aradia screamed as the weight of the laughing Bokoblin pulled her down.  “You could have lived and now you’re going to die because YOU CAN’T FLY!”  She snapped the whip and the Bokoblin careened away from her into the side of the mountain, bouncing off with satisfying pop.  Ugh.  No, not satisfying at all.  She hoped that one didn’t come back to haunt her.  He was such an _ass_.

            There was a more than decent updraft now, not like the foehns that were coming off down the mountain on the western face, where Pyralsprite was facing and flinging his dragonly abuse, so she should be able to make it back up.  Aradia spread her wings, which rippled painfully, looking like loose fabric for a second before catching the wind and pushing her back up.  Her handful of attendants watched her with hollow-eyed expressions almost tangentially resembling curiosity.  The pale creatures really should just move on with their afterlives.  A swarm of flies like a silvery cloud, a handful of fish swimming through the air as if it were water, a wild pig that hadn’t accepted her peace offering, a palm tree she’d cut down, its roots and leaves shuddering like the tentacles of some obscene outer god.  Not everything she’d ever killed, but a good portion.  It was hard to imagine how much the deaths of other creatures were necessary for your own life.  It put some things in perspective.   Of course, not every ghost she saw was haunting her, specifically.  John and Roxy had attendants of their own, with much more frightening visages.  And there were dozens of fallen children who’d passed away on the path to their god.  One of them, reliving his death, tumbled past her right then and there.

            Something pink and blue whizzed past immediately after, following the exact same path and screaming “Rae-Rae!”  A flick of her wrist and the whip was wrapped tight around Roxy’s waist.  The girl was a bit heavier than the Bokoblin, but Aradia had the wind under her wings now.  A few good beats, and she was safely on the far side of the bridge, where the Bokoblin had popped up in the first place.

            John shuffled his way over to the far ledge, hand over hand, thanking every god he knew that he hadn’t drawn his hammer fighting the monster, because else he would have dropped the thing, and his Nana’s shield into the bargain.  The fact that he was dangling from a rope with only his fingers thousands of feet in the air only irritated him compared to the thought of losing those heirlooms.  By the time he reached the far ledge, the girls were just touching down.  John might have said something about how cool it would be to fly, but didn’t want to get teased again.

            Pyralsprite roared.  The mountain shook.  Cracks appeared in the ground and along the walls, and steam and black soot hissed out for just a moment.  “Well shit,” said John.  “I really, really hope we can calm Pyralsprite down.”  The girls nodded, a little stunned.  John stood up.  “So, Aradia,” he said, trying to shift things back into a more casual tone, “how did you make it to Pyralsprite with so many Bokoblins up here?”

            Aradia shook her head wildly, and her wooly curls all but writhed.  “They weren’t here before.  I’d never even seen one in real life until today.”  There was a Bokoblin’s ghost haunting the main floor of the post office who looked more confused than evil, but that was beside the point.

            Roxy rubbed her chin.  “Hey John, didn’t you say that the ones on your island were carried in by kargorocs?” she asked.

            John nodded slowly.  “You think that’s what they’re doing?  Invading from the top down?”

            Roxy shrugged.  “It’s pretty smart actually.  Well, it would be if the Bokoblins weren’t so damn dumb,” she smirked.  “But yeah, a downwards push is probably what they’re going for.”

            The discussion over, the kids strolled over to the door and kicked it open, slipping once again into the warm darkness.  The constant changes in temperature were probably going to get them all sick.

            Aradia produced a torch one again, and once again the children examined the chamber they found themselves in.  Against the far wall was a pyramid of carved stone blocks, atop of which was another hole cut in the cave wall.  Off in the corner was a bedroll, a few crates, and a lamp.  “Base camp 03!” she said proudly.  “After this it’s just a climb up another set of stairs and we’ll be with Pyralsprite!”

            “And then we’ll have a whole other set of problems,” said John.  “What if we have to fight him?”

            “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Roxy.  “I don’t think we can fight a crazy dragon-god right now.”  She whispered loudly, “Sounds just a tiny bit above our skill-level!”  No one laughed, so she laughed for everyone.

            The children rested a while, as much as they could when preparing for eminent death.  It had only now, near the end of the arduous climb, dawned on them that reaching their destination was not a victory but would merely be the start of another trial.

            This thought was quickly forgotten when Aradia offered her guests snacks, and, without waiting for a response, opened the tightly sealed food crate, and recoiled in horror when she saw the gelatinous red mass that had filled the entire space.  A bulbous head-shape stretched out from the opening.  Two spheres rose to the surface and emerged into the air as neon-green eyes.  A large bubble popped, leaving behind a gash that served as a crude simulacrum of a mouth.  “The fuck is this?” asked Roxy.

            John readied his hammer, but then had an idea.  What had Gamzee said about that pictobox?  He summoned it from its card and snapped a picture.  A brilliantly colored image of the creature rolled out of the bottom.  The back read: “Red chuchu.  Jelly has medicinal properties.  Incredibly fragile.”  John nodded as if given instructions, and stared at the thing’s derpy face.  It looked as if it would be a slackjawed idiot if it were human.  He chuckled, and smashed it with a hammer, splattering curative goop all over the small room and his friends.

            “Is this revenge for the grey fever thing?” asked Roxy, who was trying very hard not to move and thereby spread the thing to other parts of her body.  “Because I’m not sorry.”  The fur on her ears had puffed out like an irritated cat’s.

            Aradia stuck a finger in her mouth.  “It tastes…spicy?  Like cinnamon and nutmeg.  I wouldn’t have thought that.”

            “It’s medicinal!” John said, glad to be the one who knew a thing for once. 

            “And a little cloying,” said Aradia, smacking her lips.  “Like bad honey.”

            John ignored her.  “The magic pictobox that the sketchy clown we met in that dungeon says so!”  He paused for a moment.  “That…sounded saner in my head.  Like, way saner.”

            “I think you’re right,” said Aradia.  “It tastes almost exactly like red potion.  We could probably just boil it down and make cheap, bootlegged medicine.” She strode forward, producing some glass jars and scooping it in.

            Roxy, meanwhile, had found Aradia’s water supply, a huge blue jar.  She lifted it over her head and dumped it all over herself, washing away the red slime.

 

            A few minutes later, the trio was ascending the stairs.  It was a considerable longer climb than the first one.  Not only was the stairway longer, but the going was slower as the steps were in considerably worse condition.  Here and there a step was broken in half or missing altogether, and other steps looked worn enough to crumble at any time.  Eventually, the kids reached a stretch of steps that was solid enough to linger.  And they decided to take a breather.  John actually sat down, legs dangling over the edge, and the girls gasped.

            He chuckled.  “Didn’t you climb down a sheer wall in the middle of the night, Roxy?  And you can fly,” he said, pointing at Aradia.  “I’m just some guy, why are you two scared?”  They waited some five minutes.  Just when John was about to swing his legs back up and resume the ascent, he noticed a tiny white flower with five rounded petals growing out of the crack between the marble step and the volcanic wall.  John smiled at the brave little plant, wondering how it could have gotten so high up.  He considered plucking it, but decided against—

            The mountain shook as Pyralsprite’s booming roar, louder now than ever, more terrible than a thousand cannon blasts, but strangely musical, like a trumpet, filled his ears.  The bent themselves down in pain as the air blurred and the mountain shook.  There was a rhythmic pounding that they’d not heard before; Pyralsprite was stamping his feet wildly, as if in pain.  There was an ugly series of cracks as the sound faded away.

            John jumped back up to his feet, almost falling over backward but pushed back to stability by Roxy.  “Run!” he said, taking off up the stairs.  Roxy looked back over Aradia’s shoulder and gasped.  Aradia plunged a few feet as the stairs gave way under her before unfurling her wings.  She drifted lazily along as her Hylian friends raced ahead of the crumbling staircase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No polyfandrous this isn’t the trollish cliff-hanger I told you I was plotting, that’s next chapter. Which should be up fairly soon, as I’m trying to complete this story arc before moving onto something else (what do you all think I should do next? A little Trollish Layer I’m thinking) but y’all know how I am with promises.
> 
> People really liked Aradia last chapter. Especially her hair. It was just a joke, but now it’s canon I guess, since I made reference to it again. Huh.
> 
> I only realized while I was writing the previous chapter that the statues and things in Dragon Roost Cavern are probably supposed to be Gorons (d’oh!) a fact that I’m sure would fascinate Aradia to no end. She seems a bit more prominent than the other two in this chapter, but that’s because she knows the dungeon well; it only stands to reason. Also she was probably the second character whose role I’d decided way back in the planning stages.
> 
> You’ve of course noticed that I changed the dungeon layout. Otherwise, it would be the kids running back and forth while Roxy has brain-blasts and Aradia wonders who reset these thousand year-old traps and John grows incredibly bored of smashing chuchus and everyone wonders how they’re getting so close to lava without exploding.


	10. God of the Forge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapters from here on will have soundtracks :)

            John fell to the floor, breathless and clutching at his side from the run.  Not so hard to imagine when lugging about thirty pounds of equipment up a collapsing stairway in increasingly thin air after having sweat out half the water in his body inside a volcano, but not entirely heroic either.  Once he’d collected himself, he sat up, and looked around—

            “LOOK DOWN!” cried a shrill voice.  “DON’T LOOK HIM IN THE EYES!”  John obeyed immediately, and his ears were filled with that glorious trumpet-blast of a roar.  He’d noticed it was musical on the way up, now he realized it was beautiful.  A bright light filled his vision, leaving him dazzled even through his eyelids.  There was something else going on in the background.  Harp music.  “Come closer you three,” the voice repeated, “crawl along until you feel shade.”

            “Why can’t we look?” asked Roxy.

            “You’ll go blind like me,” John could swear the voice was smiling evilly.  “If you want to do that, go on ahead.”

            The children crawled towards the music.  It was a jaunty tune, for a harp.  [Something you could dance to](http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL072C7B6DD9506FBB&v=LgG8lAVh-EA&feature=endscreen&NR=1).  The brilliant light was suddenly not there and it felt just a smidge cooler.  John opened his eyes and saw a troll in a wooden cage set deep inside a cave.  He had the sudden realization that they were directly underneath Pyralsprite. 

            The troll was in her twenties and her teeth may have been even sharper than the Empress’s.  She was holding a lyre made of gold and red wood, with a soundbox shaped like a highly stylized face.  The wooden arms came out of the top of its head, and made it look like a troll’s horns.  The lyrist herself might also have been pretty, under the teal scab covering the bottom half of her face that had spread from a pair of now completely lifeless eyes.  “Sorry I couldn’t get my makeup on,” she said mockingly, “but I’ve had to keep Pyralsprite calm all these past days.”

            “Call this calm?” asked Roxy, voice dripping with sarcasm so thick John was surprised that it didn’t collect in a pool at her feet.  “Is this one of those ‘cultural’ things, like how you guys use ‘love’ and ‘pity’ interchangeably?  Because that’s wrong too.”

            She cackled.  “Has he left the mountain?  Wreaked a swath of fury and destruction across the Great Sea?  Caused a second cataclysm?  _You're welcome_.”  She winked, and a flake of teal crumbed off and fell to the floor.  All the while her fingers danced across the strings and played their jaunty tune.  “And Karkat’s the only one who talks like that anymore.”

            “Teacher!” Aradia shouted, rushing up to the cage and clasping the bars.  “You are alive!  I knew it!”

            The other troll snorted.  “Of course I’m alive.”

            “Guys,” Aradia said excitedly, turning back to the Hylians, “this is Terezi Pyrope.  She’s Pyralsprite’s Handmaid and my instructor.  Karkat wants to pail with her.”  Roxy snorted.  John wasn’t sure what that meant but it sounded dirty, so he dutifully turned red for the sake of argument.

            “Hey,” she said with a nod, leaning back in her seat, “bastards tore my wings off and made me look Pyralsprite in the eyes.  He didn’t like that.  They thought he was just a dumb animal but I’ve been with him since before I pupated, so He ate them and locked me up in this cage, for my own protection of course.  And because He doesn’t want me to leave.”  Terezi stopped playing for an instant and the great voice of the dragon became trembling and quiet.  She pointed down to the floor.  “Something down there is hurting poor dear Pyralsprite,” said Terezi, lips pursed as in concern for a loved one.  John was shocked to hear this gargantuan deific monster whose voice cracked stone and whose mere gaze could apparently make your eyeballs explode out of their sockets referred to as a ‘poor dear,’ but even more shocked to find out that something could actually hurt it. 

            “He’s in terrible pain,” she went on despite John’s minor panic attack, “He could just leave, but if He does the thing will get out.  He can’t kill it Himself either, something about ancient contracts—”

            ‘Wait,” said Roxy, “he talks?”  She cleared her throat.  “ _H_ e I mean?”

            ‘Sure,” Terezi drawled as if it were unimportant.  “Dragon language.  I’ve been taught to speak it since I was a wiggler, and I’ve been doing the same for Aradia.”

            “We can’t make the sounds with our mouths though,” said Aradia, “we need instruments!”

            “This is weird,” John said, ears drooping.  No one paid him any mind.

            “So could you all be dears,” said Terezi, resuming her song; Pyralsprite’s roar changed tone, and it almost sounded like contented purring; the troll reclined on her cot, an earthen ledge cut into the cell-wall, splaying herself out dramatically and showing off her new-looking red boots, “and go down there and kill the thing for me?”

            “Okay!” Aradia said, nodding enthusiastically, wooly curls bouncing.

            “Umm,” John said, tugging on her sleeve.  “Aradia, maybe we should go to the Empress, huh?  Tell her what’s going on, get a whole fucking army to go take care of the thing that’s _hurting a god_?”

            Terezi leaned forward, smirking.  Her unseeing eyes focused on John, then on Roxy, then, longest of all, on Aradia.  “I think you can handle it,” she said.  “In fact I’d do it myself but, well, ‘locked in a cage, need to keep Pyralsprite calm, it’s actually pretty comfy in here’, all that sort of thing, you understand.”

            “Okay,” John said, nodding more to assure himself than for the benefit of the blind troll.  “But we’ll need another way in.  The stairs collapsed on our way—”

            A look of feigned shock spread across Terezi’s face.  “Aradia you took the _stairs_?  Like a Karkat?  For _shame_!”  Aradia however just laughed at the abuse.  “Most people climb up the back way,” Terezi explained.  “It’s faster but much more likely to get you killed.  I guess it’s the only way up now,” she said, licking her lips.  Terezi sniffed in a considering manner.  “Hey, your human male is pretty attractive.  Make sure to tease him extra hard for me.”

            “Please don’t,” he said, just as both girls responded with a resounding ‘okay!’  Terezi cackled as John groaned.  “Here, take this,” she said, producing a heavy golden key.  It was decorated with a red and purple enameled eye and a pair of stylized horns, and the teeth were curved and narrowed to a point, like the teeth of an animal.  It was longer than John’s hand and probably weighed two pounds.  The big key was a good compliment to the silver key they’d already collected.  “They put a lock on the door to the sill to keep anyone from killing it.  Give me that other one,” Terezi said snappishly.  “It goes to my cell.  I’m sure I’ll want to leave _eventually_.”

            “How can you tell?” John asked, eyebrow raised quizzically.

            Aradia gasped.  “There’s a monster in the forge?”

            “Sure,” said Terezi, as if she were saying that the sky was blue.  “The god of it, in fact.  The thing your precious stone-men were worshipping, at least by the end of their time here.”

            “But how do you know that?” she asked.

            “Pyralsprite’s got a lot of stories,” she said with a dismissive gesture.  “The Bokoblins locked the door to protect themselves as much as to hurt Pyralsprite.  Now go!  Go!  I need to keep playing before he takes the mountain down.”  And with that she struck her fingers against all the strings at once, creating a cacophony of sound like chocolate gold.  The children said their goodbyes and left her cave, stepping into Pyralsprite’s blinding light.

            The great dragon roared, the sound shaking the children to their very bones, and started pounding with his mighty claws again.  The sound almost masked the heavy, solid flapping of a trio of kargarocs flying in out of the sun.  Each carried a monster in its claws; two deep green Bokoblins, wielding fine cutlasses and decked in chainmail, and a hulking brute of a Moblin, easily half as big again as the ones John had seen at the Forsaken Fortress.

            The three monsters were dumped onto the ground in front of the party and John sighed, drawing his hammer and shield.  Aradia cracked her whip warningly.  Roxy yawned and drew a pair of her knives.  “These guys look stronger than normal,” John warned.

            “Sure,” said Roxy, “but we’ve been outnumbering the poor things all dungeon.  It’s finally a fair fight,” she winked a big pink eye. 

            John chuckled.  “When you put it that way,” he said, grinning evilly at the Moblin.  “I’ll be a gentleman and fight the big one.”  Terezi’s cackling was carried on the raging wind.  [She struck up a tune that was at once melancholy and adventurous](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD2TLTtyfDE).  The winds seemed to join in, zephyrs acting as accompaniment, with Pyralsprite’s trumpeting roar providing the percussion.

            The Moblin bellowed and charged at John.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Roxy loose her knives and heard the crack of the whip; then he was running at the monster, easily twice his size, and completely unafraid.  Was he trying to show off?  Who knew?  Who cared?  The Moblin took a swing with its massive spear, raking the ground in front of John, kicking up a cloud of dust, but the heavy blade caught for just an instant and John snapped it off with a single blow.

            Grunting in surprise, the monster backpedalled and jabbed at John’s chest with the jagged end of the broken spear, but John smacked it out of the way with his shield.  He had yet to break his stride and completed his run with a leap, delivering a vicious overhand swing to the Moblin’s head.  Its eyes rolled back and its teeth cracked, but surprisingly enough the monster stayed on his feet.

            Even more surprisingly, it had enough coherency left over to punch John almost all the way back to the cave-mouth and run away.  Terezi laughed at him.  Although John was seeing stars, he could tell she was also pointing dramatically, as the music had stopped.

 

            Iron chainmail is all well and good for stopping things weaker than iron.  A bullwhip made of steel cable is not one of those things; it shredded like tissue beneath Aradia’s first strike, leaving the Bokoblin defenseless and his leopard-print undergarments exposed to the air.  Aradia stuck her tongue out and gagged.  He bowed his head in shame.  She advanced, cracking her whip as if driving cattle, or so she’d heard, trying to push the Bokoblin away from her friends without hurting it too much.  It tried to deflect the blows with its cutlass, but his heart wasn’t in it, embarrassed as he was, and sustained a lot of angry violet cuts and welts before deciding to run for it.

            Aradia smiled victoriously.  One enemy, at least, had been taught a lesson about messing with her without having to meet an unseemly end.  He would warn others, and diplomacy would at the very least be considered.  Truly, this was the start of—

            John’s Moblin, looking at least twenty percent lumpier about the face, staggered up to her Bokoblin and laid it flat with a meaty fist.  A strangled cry was followed by an ugly, cartilaginous scraping sound as it hit the floor, neck looking distended and crooked.  Aradia felt the spirit leave the body.  The Moblin picked up the Bokoblin’s cutlass, the huge blade looking like a knife in the green-furred ham it called a hand, and bellowed.  Aradia bared her teeth at it and growled, an ugly pressure building up in her left temple.  She lifted up her whip and sent its silver yards streaking at the ogre’s arm.

            Her aim was off by a just little thanks to the anger, and the whip wrapped around the monster’s arm instead of cutting like she’d wanted.  It grabbed a handful of the length and yanked her off her feet, twisting her around and dragging her along the ground by her back, scraping her sensitive wings.  She cried out as she wondered if she’d ever be able to properly fly.

            The Moblin bellowed yet again once he had Aradia in front of him, raising his stolen cutlass, when another shadow passed in front of the sun, not black but dark blue.  It landed lightly on his shoulders, and buried five knives in his skull, one right after another, and slit his throat, dragging at the Moblin’s head to direct the fall away from Aradia.  Roxy rode it down to the ground like clinging to a falling tree.

 

            “Did you know that taking a throwing knife to the knee is a Windfall euphemism for getting married?” asked Roxy as her Bokoblin rolled around on the ground agony, clutching at length of steel currently buried in its knee.  The first two knives had bounced off its chest.  Pretty stupid, Rox, she berated herself, looking at one of the recovered blades, which had snapped in half.  “Quit your whining,” she snapped, throwing another knife at its face with an authoritative gesture.  It twitched and lay still.  “You don’t have to replace any valuable equipment.  Okay, I got it cheap by flirting with the merchant, but still.” 

            Then she heard Rae-Rae cry out in pain.  Roxy rolled up her sleeves.  “Time to get my not-ninja skills rolling,” she said, and jumped twenty feet into the air, her shadow splashing beneath her like a puddle of water.

            A minute later, Aradia was beaming up at her, eyes gleaming.  “That was amazing!”

            Roxy scraped some viscous brown Moblin blood off herself.  “ _Nayru_ , why’s this so thick?” she said, black lips pulled back in a disgusted sneer.  “It wasn’t that hard,” she said in a more friendly tone.  “John already softened him up for me, literally,” she snickered.  “And I have _plenty_ of experience in cold-murdering these pig suckers.  Um, pig _like_ suckers I mean.  They probably don’t…do naughty things to pigs why the hell am I still talking,” she said, scowling.  “I need a fucking drink,” Roxy moaned, “and there’s not a drop of booze anywhere—”

            “I want to kiss you,” Aradia announced.  “Huh?” Roxy enquired.

            The troll stood up and dusted herself off.  “No!” Roxy exclaimed, beginning to panic, “we’re supposed to make _John_ uncomfortable, that’s what your sensei said and—” Aradia caught her friend in a crushing hug and stood up on her toes to give Roxy a chaste peck on the cheek.

            Roxy’s face burned.  “Oh.  Well, duh obviously that’s what you meant,” she said, looking at the smaller girl.

            “Of course,” said Aradia, big smile shrinking down slightly.  “Wait.  You think that just because I’m a troll I’m a crazy sexual deviant, don’t you?”

            “No,” said Roxy slowly, somehow giving the word about four extra syllables.

            “You do!” shouted Aradia.  She stamped her foot.  “I’m twelve!  I’m too young for quadrants!”

            A sharp whistle issued from the cave mouth.  “Blue boy over here’s dying of a concussion,” Terezi called.  “You _probably_ need him for something,” she intoned, voice dripping with sarcasm.  The two girls forgot what they were arguing about and forced several jars of raw chuchu jelly down John’s throat.

            He woke up, smacking his lips.  “Cinnamon and…cheap honey?” he asked as Roxy pulled him to his feet.  “Did I win,” he asked, surveying the battlefield.

            “Well, you got away with your life,” said Roxy, with a big fake smile, “and the other guy is certainly dead too, so let’s say yes.”

            “YOU GOT KNOCKED THE FUCK OUT KID!” Terezi shouted.  John sighed.

 

            There was a ladder down the back of the mountain, bolted to the stone with rusted irons.  It was long and ancient, bleached white by the elements, wood long fossilized, or something like it.  It felt like climbing bone, or so John imagined.  Below them, the angry brown cloud raged, conjured up by Pyralsprite’s wrath—or rather his pain.  Once again, it seemed that John had somehow been contracted to slay a god.  Well, at the end of the day, he was going to have to find the hero, and help him kill the gods’ greatest enemy.  This was the equivalent of ‘baby steps’. 

            The climb was surprisingly uneventful.  Descending through the cloud, it occasionally flashed with white and green sparks.  The air inside was thick and hot and smelled of dust.  It hurt the children’s throats but they were through it soon enough, and safely on a ledge, wide enough for the three to walk side-by-side to a door some twenty yards ahead.  “That’ll take us to base camp 05,” Aradia said.  “Just be careful where you step.”

            The path was strewn with the bright blue bomb fruits, so ripe they were almost bursting with juice, looking as delicious as they were in fact deadly.  “What is the point of these things?” John snapped.  “What possible purpose would explosive fruit serve?”

            Aradia shrugged.  “I’m an archaeologist not a botanist.”

            “I don’t know what either of those things are,” John asserted.  Ignoring him, the girls walked on down the path.  And the mountain cracked.

            The sound was like standing next to a canon and the force bounced the children up a whole foot, throwing back to the ground.  Behind them, an enormous split appeared in the stone wall, as deep as a wound, and bleeding like one too.  A geyser of molten lava shot out of the crack like the breath of a dragon, incinerating the lower reaches of the ladder before it subsided, the pressure in the sill equalizing.  Bits of pale wood rained down from the upper reaches where the quake had broken the ladder as well; there was no going back.

            More pressingly, and enormous boulder slid down the sheer faced, settling right on the path, not one inch away from the clutch of bomb fruit.  John slapped his forehead.  “This is stupid.  Now what the hell are we going to do?”

            Roxy rubbed her chin.  “I think I can fix this,” she said.

            “Do you think we can roll the boulder off the ledge?” asked Aradia.  “We’d have to step really carefully though.”

            “I know,” said John, turning to Roxy, “You’ll use your magic!”

            “She should save it for the monster,” Aradia argued.

            “Better than trying really hard not to explode while we shift a ton of rock,” John countered.

            “Well maybe I could just fly you guys across,” Aradia reasoned.

            “Do you really think you should?” John asked.  “Your wings have taken a bit of a beating…” as the two went back and forth, Roxy uttered a brief prayer, drew a dagger, and threw it at one of the bomb fruits.

            Compared to the quake just now, the blast was miniscule.  By its own standards however, it was a monster of an explosion that nearly burst the kids’ eardrums and singed off Roxy’s eyebrows.  When the smoke cleared, and there was very little of it, bomb fruit being a very clean-burning substance, the boulder was gone.  As was most of the path.

            John wiped the dust off his glasses and shouted over the ringing in his ears.  “Looks like you’re flying us after all Aradia!”

            “What?!” she shouted.

 

            Within minutes, they were standing inside the demon’s mouth.  Ahead was a pool of magma stretch from one end to another, bridged by a narrow length of stone that was cherry red on the underside.  Beyond that was a rocky outcropping, a mound of stone onto which stairs had been carved.  At the top was an enormous door, held shut by an enormous lock.  It was a golden globe shaped like a stylized, horned eye, binding a mass of golden chains together across the door.

            As the kids approached the door, Aradia stopped them.  “Let’s use up the last of the medicine right now, to fight the monster to the best of our abilities.”

            “I think we should wait and see if anyone’s fatally injured,” said John.  “We’re not that badly off, except your wings.”

            “We might need my wings,” said Aradia.  “It’ll be easier to fly in there too because of the updrafts.”

            Roxy wandered off for a second to examine the area.  A few ancient potshards, a cookpot that was so hot she couldn’t touch it, a skeleton of indeterminate race clutching a sword, rusted to ruddy powder.  It also had a fine red leather belt with a brass buckle decorated with a black enameled eagle.  Roxy snickered as she picked it up, the skeleton crumbling.  It was too big for her but John could use it as a sword-belt, er, hammer-belt.  It would look more heroic than just dangling it awkwardly from the hip like he did right now.

            Right in front of her, the magma bubbled, and she jumped back to avoid being splattered by the molten drops.  It took a second for the depression made by the bubble to subside.  Another, bigger one appeared, but it did not burst.  Instead, it crawled onto solid ground and Roxy jumped back, dropping the belt and drawing a blade.

            The lava sloughed off the creature, revealing something like a centipede with stone armor.  Its body was burning a bright cherry red with inner heat, igniting the air around it.  It had enormous jaws, as long as swords, and a single gem-like eye, luminous blue sclera, neon-pink iris, and a slit pupil like a cat.  It opened its jaws with a sound like pruning shears and Roxy readied a knife—

            There was a bluish blur and John was standing between her and the monster, smashing his hammerhead into its eye with an expert thrust, smashing the organ in.  it shattered instead of bursting, spraying out crystalline shards; the jaws spasmed, almost slicing John before hanging limply as the body collapsed in on itself, inner fire beginning to cool.

            “Okay,” said Roxy, putting her hand on John’s shoulder, “I think I may actually swoon this time, no shit.”

            He laughed nervously.  “I’ve got to be good for something, right?”

            “Ooh, a magtail,” said Aradia, approaching.  She had a finger near her mouth, a sign Roxy was beginning to associate with deep contemplation.  “We should come back later to examine the remains,” she said.  “There might be some useful parts.”

            “Ew,” said Roxy, cringing.

            “Oh, these things are mechanical,” Aradia assured the Hylians.  “We won’t be rummaging around in his guts or anything.”

            John looked at it, kicking the stony carapace, a sizzling sound escaping his sandal.  “Really?”

            Aradia nodded.  “That glow is from their power source, it keeps their gears spinning and turning forever.  Look, it doesn’t even have a mouth; they’re just the guards of whatever it is that lives in the forge.”  She stepped closer, squinting hard.  “But the other ones I’ve seen are way older.  They have nicks and cuts all over the shells and missing bits and their eyes aren’t nearly as bright, and when they move there’s all this clicking and whirring and screeching. This one must be brand new.”

            She straightened up.  “It’s making more,” she said. 

            Without further ado, John handed Aradia the big key.  She spread her wings, visibly scraped and scratched from being dragged along the ground; they seemed to tremble for a second before she caught an updraft and flew up to the lock, inserting the key as if she were driving a knife into the eye of a monster.  With a twist, the lock groaned and fell to the floor, the chains binding the door hanging limp.

            She drifted down, and John asked her to produce the rest of the medicine.  “I’m fine,” he said, “but you two are looking a little worse for wear.”  He smeared some across Aradia’s wings, a process she found incredibly awkward, but bore it in appreciation of the soothing medication.  He then moved on to Roxy.  “I could make so many jokes right now,” she said, as he spread the red slime onto her face, singed from the explosion earlier, “but I’m not going to.  Yet.  I’m gonna compose a list and read them all aloud once we’re off this island.”  John smiled.

            “One last thing,” she said, handing him the belt.  “You’ll look more heroic with this around your chest,” she explained.

            “Thank you,” he said, accepting the present.  He secured the sword-belt, hanging his hammer and shield on it experimentally before taking them down and arming himself once again.  “No more playing around,” he said.  “Let’s do this.”  He walked up to the door and kicked it like he’d seen Aradia do.  It slid up smoothly as all the others.

            If he thought it had been hot before, he’d been a fool.  The forge was a hell on earth.  A ring of stone surrounded a perfectly circular pool of glowing magma, golden red, igniting near-transparent cherry flames in the air just above it.

            Then, without ceremony, it surged upward, a plume of fire reaching up to the high ceiling (Pyralsprite’s roar of pain was heard through the stone), [bursting to reveal the god of the forge. ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjy4m6aKqSI) He was an enormous black figure, a grim giant wreathed in fire, with two eyes like enormous glowing coals and a hammer the size of a house in his hand.  It was crafted from enormous gemstones, the striking head a single huge ruby, and clockwork gears of such fineness they couldn’t have been made by mortal hands, thin as spider webs and a thousand times more intricate.  The door shut itself behind them.  John produced the pictobox and snapped a pictograph.

            “Hephaestus,” he read aloud, “god of the forge.  The _Hylian Edda_ describes him as the smith of the gods; the middle section of book I describes his forging of time itself on his work bench.  Hephaestus Minions are mechanical centipedes colloquially known as _magtails_ ; like all Minions they share their master’s face.  His hammer, Fear No Anvil, is also the most precise clock known to exist, keeping time with the very concept of time itself.  Hephaestus’ glowing red eyes are in fact part of his protective coloration.”

            John was surprised at the much more lush description.  He’d been hoping for something briefer and more importantly, something that actually told him what to do.  He didn’t have to dwell on these thoughts long however, as Hephaestus ponderously raised his hammer and brought the thing crashing down.  John only survived due to being pushed out of the way by Roxy.  “Pay more attention Johnny,” she snapped.  “Nothing that big and slow should ever get in a sucker punch like that!”

            She stood up and unleashed a flurry of daggers.  They struck with a high pitched hissing sound like water thrown onto a hot pan, leaving spots of brilliant liquid.  Roxy almost smirked, until she realized that her daggers had merely melted instantly into liquid upon touching the giant.  He moaned, a sound like an angry whale that the children could feel in their teeth, and raised his hammer once again, swinging the thing in a violent red crescent along the ground.

            This entire time Aradia had been watching the creature in awe, but at the sight of the approaching ruby wall, reflecting her own face back at her, she screamed, hooked her arms under John’s shoulders, and launched herself up into the air, narrowly avoiding the hammer.

            “Shit!” John shouted.  “Roxy!  Holy crap she’s dead!” he struggled to get out of the troll’s grasp.

            “You will be too,” she snapped, “if you keep squirming around—” she was cut off by another swing of the massive hammer, this one vertical.  The wake of its passing unbalanced her and sent them both tumbling to the ground, knocking the air out of them.  Hephaestus turned his head as if looking for them, though his eyes didn’t seem to move at all.  “Ow,” Aradia muttered angrily, “you make it hard to like you John,” she said.

            “It’s not my fault,” he snapped, or rather began to snap.  Hephaestus was now focusing on them and raising his glorious weapon for another blow.  “Hey, giant flaming fuckass!” a voice called from the other side of the room.  The god’s head snapped to the side and three more splatters of liquid metal appeared on his face as Roxy, entirely unharmed, hurled another barrage of daggers.

            “We thought you were dead!” John shouted excitedly.

            “Nope!” she said with a wink.  ‘Shadow magic is just the tits you guys.”

 

            By scattering, the kids found, they could easily avoid his ponderous blows.  He wasn’t trained to fight like John had been and was merely practicing his smith craft on the miniscule interlopers.  At the moment, John was conferring with Roxy, trying to keep the creature distracted while Aradia devised an aerial attack.  The hammerhead bounced off a dome of shadows with a metallic sound.  “Read me the picture,” she said, struggling to maintain the barrier.  Another blow caused it to temporarily separate into a hundred colored squares before reforming.  “What the fuck is Rae-Rae doing?” she muttered.

            “Smith of the gods,” John quoted.

            “Uh-huh,” said Roxy, reeling from a third blow.

            “Time itself,” said John, starting to hurry.

            “Oh god my nose is bleeding!”

            Minions share their master’s face—”

            “ _No they don’t!_   Not at _all_!”

            “Protective coloration—”

            Roxy growled and turned to snap at John, spraying a little fleck of blood onto his face.  “Who writes this sh—”  

            It suddenly hit her.  “Those things aren’t his eyes!” she said, pointing.

            John raised his head as if to nod but didn’t lower it so as not to seem like he was agreeing to anything.  Roxy sighed.  “Thank Nayru for that ass,” she muttered.  Whispering in John’s ear, she explained.  “He can’t see us!  He only attacks when he hears a sound, which is why he isn’t looking for Aradia.”

            John gasped.  “So we should be really quiet!”  The barrier fizzled and sparked under this last blow and disappeared.

 

            Aradia had built base camp 05 near the top of the sill where some fascinating cave paintings depicted an incredibly complex pattern of spider webs, bringing up planks of bleached-white wood from the structures outside the mountain to create a crude scaffolding, as well as some strange seeds and a jug of water.  That had happened about a year ago; surprisingly the water was still there, in a different form.

            Some kind of bacteria that could survive at these temperatures had turned into a spongy green mold in and around the water jug, and had given rise to a tiny ecosystem of insects such as hardhat beetles and lanay ants, and amazingly enough, the seeds she’d brought in and forgotten about had sprouted.  They were bomb fruits.

            She spent about fifteen minutes examining the miraculous oasis of life and shedding a joyous tear over the beauties of science, and then another five trying to pick the fruit without setting it off.  This proved…fruitless.  She snickered at her joke, then took a running leap off the scaffold, diving towards her friends who appeared to be reeling in horror at Hephaestus’ next blow.  She’d rescued John last time, so this time she picked up Roxy, grabbing her around the waist and veering upward, flying faster than she ever had, almost as fast as Karkat with his mutant wings, so the pressure around her face stopped her from breathing for one awful, exhilarating second.

            Roxy gawked at her, pink eyes huge.  “My fuckin’ hero!” she declared, throwing her arms up and herself off balance so she let out a yelp and almost fell.  Then she kissed Aradia on the cheek.  The troll snickered as she alit on base camp five.  The wood creaked under the extra weight.

            “Why didn’t you attack though?” asked Roxy, folding her arms in a poor impression of sternness.  “We talked about this.”

            Aradia showed her the bombs and explained.  “So,” she said, “Do you think you can magic at them, make some magic happen, do a magical thing with magic?”

            Roxy sniffed up a drop of blood, cringing slightly.  “I am going to have such a migraine tomorrow,” she muttered as she sat down in a lotus position.

 

            John laid on the ground, perfectly still, trying to breathe as quietly as possible.  He wondered how good Hephaestus’ hearing was.  It definitely hadn’t been able to find him, just as Roxy had said.  She’d figured it out so quickly; what the hell was wrong with him?  It seemed as if John was going to be the least helpful person on his own quest.  Sure he had the Breath Waker, but that wouldn’t be any help here.  Maybe it could summon hurricanes and shatter forests and whatever else the voice had told him, but he didn’t know _how_ to use it.  He sighed.

            Hephaestus’ head turned.  Oh shit.  John was damn near exhausted from running around in this heat.  The wakes from the hammer blows scalded his skin, and the impacts sent out a rain of hot shrapnel in every direction.  A direct hit would leave him as a greasy smear on the forge floor, but fighting like this was death by a thousand cuts.  He didn’t know if he could dodge again—

            A multitude of multicolored squares appeared in the air above Hephaestus, combining into shape with the strangest sound John had ever heard, like some combination of an unoiled machine, chirping crickets, and alien music.  Hephaestus looked up; the squares had become a swirling black vortex and out of it tumbled a mass of wood and stone, with a cluster of bomb rocks growing out of it.  They hit him square in the face.

            The god of the forge roared in pain, clutching at his face with one hand, scraping off bits of refuse and what must have been burnt flesh.  John saw a piece of something glowing cherry red fall into the magma.  That’s right, he thought, protective coloration—

            The words stopped when John saw what was underneath; Hephaestus’ true face.  It was an enormous eye taking up half the smith god’s head, with a glowing turquoise sclera, its iris a violet starburst with a violently pink core and a slit pupil.  It was the eye of that magtail creature in flesh instead of stone and metal, beautiful and hideous at once.  John remembered this was the same class of creature as Abraxas.

            The huge head and eye swiveled with unnerving speed, up towards a small platform where the girls were standing, jumping up and down victoriously.  The eye began to glow gold.  John did the only thing he could do.  He shouted.

            Unused to using his eye, or perhaps just startled by the sound, Hephaestus’ eyeball swiveled towards John at the last second, firing a rapid-fire burst of white-hot bolts of light, exploding against the stone walls and making the mountain quake as it made its way from where the girls had been over to John himself.  John had been wrong.  He still had some running left in him.

 

            The explosion shook the shoddy, damaged scaffold off its supports and the girls tumbled to the ground.  Aradia’s wing was bent and crooked, and she bit down on her tongue to keep from screaming at the pain in the sensitive magical tissues.  Roxy was lying prone on the ground next to her.  Panic rising in her throat, Aradia raised a shaking hand to her new friend’s throat and fumbled around for her pulse.  It was there, faint, but present.  She laughed a quivering snicker of relief.  Her attendants were standing all around her, staring with cold white eyes, those that had eyes of course.  But she couldn’t stop laughing.  There was something else rising, pounding against her temple, welling up, ready to burst.  It was heady and intoxicating and made her want to laugh more, but it was getting harder to breathe now.  Her mouth was still smiling but her eyes were terrified.  Oh no.  Could it be…the blood rage?  She thought she didn’t have it, the lower bloods almost never have it, but maybe….

            She watched John run.  He was getting close.  The forge was a circle, after all.  Soon he’d be there and those flaming bolts would follow.  Could Aradia run now, with Roxy unconscious and herself hurt?  John solved that problem for her.  He stopped in his tracks, raised his shield, and was enveloped in flame.  Aradia’s mind spilled over and she stopped laughing.

 

            John wasn’t about to lead that thing back to the girls that was for sure.  He threw down his hammer and raised his shield with both hands, kissing the edge before raising it in front of him like a holy relic.  The bolt of light exploded against the shield.  The heat was intense, the sound overwhelming, the light dazzling.  The shield held, ringing like a bell and humming like a hummingbird’s heart, but it held.  The enamel wasn’t even scratched.  John laughed, lowering the shield and thanking every god he knew of, asking them to bless his Nana and whatever wonderful, clever, magical ancestor had built this shield, forgetting the no-longer-blind evil god trying to burn him to death for a moment.  Which was just as well, as he was no longer in immediate danger.

            With a gasp, he noticed Aradia staring down the creature, floating a foot above the floor despite her right wing being bent into a horrible shape.  “Look out!” he shouted, too late.  Hephaestus fired off another burst, and Aradia didn’t even try to run.  The bolts of light hung in midair, crackling and sparking, a burning chain linking her to the god.

            [Her eyes flashed every conceivable combination of colors without rhyme or reason and curls of energy rose up from her hands, red on the right and blue on the left, long wooly hair spreading out behind her like an angry black cloud](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLDdIUE9mPs).  With a wave of her red right hand they went flying back to their sender, blasting enormous holes in Hephaestus’ black carapace.  He roared in agony, attempting to submerge.  A scrim of purple light surrounded him, and he rose up instead, struggling against something invisible.  The mountain shook.  Spires of stone tore themselves from the wall, impaling the deity through the gaping cracks in his armor.  Out spilled glowing white fluid, like liquid light.  With a weak hum like a dying whale, he struggled weakly as the purple aura split off into red and blue, the blue taking away his mighty hammer.  It exploded into its constituent parts, hanging in the air for a second before flying into the god’s body.  The moaning call cut off.  Hephaestus was dead.

            The mountain didn’t stop trembling.  More and more hunks of stone ripped themselves out of the walls and hung in the air like balloons.  The magma in the pool churned and bubbled like a stormy sea.  Pyralsprite could be heard; he was _livid_.  John imagined the great beast as if he were a frightened animal, whites of his eyes visible all the way around.  It was not a pretty image.

            Aradia was doing this somehow.  He had to stop her.  But how?  He trudged towards her, the air becoming thick with power as he approached the troll, and harder to walk through until it felt like drowning in mud.  She hadn’t noticed him yet; he produced the Breath Waker and conducted the same song as before, commanding the air to _make a path_.  He took in a deep breath of air and proceeded.

            Aradia noticed him, or at least she turned her head towards him. Who knew what she saw with those lights in her eyes?  She was so expressionless, she might have been dead.  What to do?

            Hands trembling, he threw down the Breath Waker.  It could be seen as a weapon, couldn’t it?  He didn’t want her to think he meant any harm.  “Can you hear me?” He asked.  She said nothing.  The mountain raged.  He approached.  They were one yard away, one foot way, closer, closer still.  John put his arms around her neck and pulled her down to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I said ‘tease John with everybody,’ I meant ‘tease everybody with everybody but especially John’. I fully expect a slew of John/Roxy, John/Aradia, and Aradia/Roxy smut set in this universe to pop up. Now.  
> Hephaestus is nothing like the actual boss in this area, sorry, especially to the guy who really wanted Dave to be snapping these ironic pics of the bosses. Funnily enough no one has asked me whether Dave is still alive even though I never provided any information as to his whereabouts. I suppose, what with him being the Hero of Time and all, that this is to be expected. I mean come on; I can’t pull any suspense out of that. We all know how this is going to end, Dave being all legendarily heroic and shit, John having paved the way like Jaspers said. It’s the journey that matters, man.  
> Fanfic.netters; the Ao3 version of this chapter has music. Why wouldn’t it? It’s the internet age and this is a Homestuck fanfic. Hmm, three Homestuck songs and not one Zelda song. I’m sorry, there’ll be more later.  
> I know that none of those songs involved a harp shut up you get the idea.  
> Fuck, this chapter was supposed to be short….
> 
> And let’s be serious here this thing deserves a TV tropes page make it happen.


	11. A Favorable Northerly

            John woke up on his back, soaking in a very shallow, very clear, blue pool at the foot of the mountain with bomb fruits growing all about.  Up above, Pyralsprite’s trumpeting roar dulled to a satisfied growl and the winds began to slow.  Ash and embers fell towards the earth like flakes of snow, a catastrophe averted.  John smiled gingerly, and rubbed his cheek, also gingerly.  There was a nasty lump roughly the size of a cucco egg on the left side of his face that was already starting to turn a gorgeous purple with olive green fading to yellow at the edges like some kind of magnificent, painful work of art.  It hurt like a motherfucker and he was sure he must have died when he took the hit, but he did it.  He defeated Hephaestus (or at least helped) and averted catastrophe and…he felt cold in the pit of his stomach.  What was that last thing?

            Roxy’s voice sounded quietly yet gleefully in his left ear.  “OMDNF John!” she said, shaking him by the shoulder.  It hurt to blush.  “I can’t believe it!”  It hurt to think.  Everything tasted green, and fiery.  He turned to looked at the pink-haired girl, likewise laying in the pool and looking considerably more comfortable than he felt, though just as beat-up and disheveled.

            “What the fuck…” John muttered.  He remembered something now: Aradia, that nice, sweet troll that had gone with them up the mountain.  Already he thought of her as a friend.  But she went crazy or something and…he remembered grabbing her by the neck.  What the _hell had he done_?  “You are such a perrrrrrv,” Roxy whispered, winking a big pink eye.

            “John,” Aradia whimpered from the other side, and somehow hearing her voice did not reassure him in the slightest.  He rolled over to his right.  She was sitting up, legs crossed, wings folded against each other like a butterfly in repose, and was paying an inordinate amount of attention to a spot on the mountain ahead of her.  Aradia twisted a lock of thick, wooly hair between her hands like it owed her money.  “I’m sorry I went on a rampage and almost killed everyone, and I’m also sorry that as soon as I stopped being on a rampage the first thing I did was punch you.”

            “It’s okay,” John said quickly, choking a little and trying to stop the flood of emotions that was threatening to (he was sure) kill him.  Life was so much easier without girls in it, he decided.  “Really it was nothing—”

            “No it wasn’t!” Aradia said, coloring slightly.  “But dammit John I am—”

            “Don’t say it,” he warned, sitting up with a splash, bruise in horrible burning pain from the fearsome blush he had going.

            “Too young—”

            “Aradia,” he warned, “just drop it I _understand_ —”

             “For quadrants!” she finished.  Roxy burst out into jubilant laughter.

            “Oh my Gods, Karkat told me to do it alright!?” John snapped.  He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes pensively, as if he had just lost at something.  “He said if I ever got into trouble with troll women that I should… _touch their faces and try to sound like the ocean_!”

            Aradia blinked.  “Oh right,” she said, cheerfully, flashing a big smile with all of her shiny white teeth.  John smiled back, only realizing as he did so how threatening it was when other trolls smiled.  Was this…another one of those _cultural_ things?  “Of course that was it!  I mean what else could you have done except maybe kill me?  Or… _kiss_ me.” (Roxy squealed delightedly in the background and John’s heart rose up into his throat and he nearly choked on it)  Aradia shut her eyes hard and shook her head, curls bouncing wildly as her face became a truly striking shade of burgundy.  “Nope,” she said, repeating it many times, “nope nope nope!  I am not going to be thinking of kisses right after getting my first papping stolen by a human!  Nope nope nope!”  She shoved John apropos of nothing and he fell backwards into the water.  “Dammit John!” she snapped, skin suddenly lightening to an almost sickly white.  “I am not even pale for you!  Don’t you ever do that without my permission _again_!”

            He sat back up.  “Um, yes ma’am,” he said.  Roxy had fallen silent but only because she was laughing so hard that she could no longer breathe properly and the sound was coming out silently, racking her body with convulsions and sending violent ripples across the pool as she flopped like a dying fish.

            Another trumpet-blast of a roar like audible gold tore the air, drawing all attention from John’s lady troubles back to Pyralsprite, who had had quite enough of this preteen drama shit.  He let out a trilling song and John could at last make out individual sounds and even words, finally coming to understand how dragons could have language as well why the trolls needed instruments to speak it.

            Aradia grinned, and there was nothing threatening in it this time.  “He says that he thanks you for your services,” she said.  “And that he has chosen not to eat you!”  She wiggled her eyebrows.  “That’s a great honor, it means he likes you.”

            “Er, thanks I guess,” said John.  He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes again.  “Um can you tell him that—?”

            “Nope,” said Aradia with her trademarked cheer, “I don’t have an instrument!”  Another song erupted from the dragon’s mouth.  “Oh!  Um, Pyralsprite used his magic to get us down here in case you were wondering, and he also declares you to be a friend to all trollkind, and all of us to be true heroes!”  Aradia’s eyes widened.  “Wow!  An actual compliment from Pyralsprite!  Amazing!” 

            The rarity of the great dragon’s compliments was not entirely lost on John.  However, for the moment, he was too busy basking in the warm glow of those words.  Sure, he thought, he might not be _the_ hero, but damned if he wouldn’t be _a_ hero, to anyone who needed him.

 

            The Empress honored them, of course, in her own empressarial way.  He had received Pyralsprite’s blessing after all, and had been named a friend of trollkind, and naturally friends of his were friends of trolls as well.  “Any troll who harms you or yours shall be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” she declared, raising her trident high, “as if they had done the same harm to a highblood!” A hush ran over the crowd; such honor had never been conferred to a Hylian before.  And then a roar of approval broke through and the trolls rushed up to him and forcibly slathered his face in clown makeup.  Roxy had somehow made off with the pictobox and proceeded to take as many pictographs as possible.

            A grand feast was held in the party’s honor out in the big, egg-shaped chamber, spread out across a dozen heavy tables that had been lugged out from somewhere by particularly huge blue-bloods.  John was struck by how unique each troll was and often wondered how all these colorful creatures could be the same race, but was even more entranced by the food, comprising both human and troll delicacies.  Aradia largely stuck to what she knew but was happy to try anything whereas Roxy ate everything with equal gusto.  John however, being from a small island, was somewhat intimidated by the glorious spread, being unused to most things outside of fish, pork, baked goods (made of imported flour and dried fruits of course), and the fibrous white tubers that grew sporadically on Outset and other islands of the far south.

            Tentatively, he poked a slab of dark meat with his fork and nearly jumped when it curled up into a ball.  Aradia reached over across the table and cut it in half with a cleaver, revealing flaky, slightly green-tinted flesh inside.  “Ocean grubs are delicious,” she said, “and highly prized.  Only sea-dwellers can go down deep enough to where they are, down where the ghosts of Hyrule live,” here she winked knowingly, “but sometimes they move around even after they’ve been cooked.  We take out their claws and teeth just in case they try to bite on the way down.”  Aradia giggled.

            Trembling slightly, John scooped a lump of meat into his mouth.  It tasted a bit like lobster, which he’d never had before, and a bit like mint.  “It’s…good!” he announced to the great pleasure of their hosts, and Roxy took another pictograph.  “Clown John eating a bug!” she announced, to even greater jubilance.  Before John could say anything she flipped it over and he saw that it was actually written on the back of the thing.  John sighed.

            The party went on into the night.  Roxy danced a [lively jig](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEoU70DXr90) on the table to a pounding beat drummed out by the highbloods on the table; she was quickly joined by the Empress herself and the court had the decency to appear scandalized before doubling their speed to test her Condescension’s grace.  Someone acquired a Calatian fiddle, someone else a set of bagpipes made of dodongo stomachs, and yet a third person found an ocarina, and joined at the last minute by a Holodrumian horn and they formed a quartet.  A very redfaced Karkat made passes at Pyralsprite’s very tealfaced attendant, only freshly descended from the mountain and still bloodstained yet very receptive, and John felt that he was the only one in the entire city who had not had anything to drink until Aradia approached, holding something behind her back, with a huge smile that made him excessively uncomfortable.  She pounced at the last minute and forced a bottle of something into his mouth that was at once incredibly sweet and horribly acidic.

            “Sh, shshshsh,” she said, cradling his head, “just consider this a little payback huh?  Besides, Labrynnian rum isn’t the worst thing I could have given you.  A real prank would have involved Sosarian fire-whiskey, or even sopor, but I don’t hate you that much!” Aradia giggled, and then she paled slightly as if realizing she’d misspoken, “or even a little,” she added hurriedly.

            She let John go and he fell to the floor, head swimming.  No, seriously, he thought, life was so much easier when the only girl his age was his sister.

            At around midnight, the Prince deigned to enter the grand hall.  Nothing could quite silence the roaring soiree, because no one throws a party like a troll does and even a trollish Prince does not have that kind of power, but a respectful amount of obeisance was given as he approached John, followed closely by his surprisingly fierce looking seahorse lusus.  The Pearl was in his hands, casting a livid orange light on his face.

            Eridan’s nose wrinkled when he looked at John, lying on the floor, stinking of alcohol and covered in clown makeup, John knew that he probably was not making a grand impression.  “You smell odd,” said Eridan.

            “Yeah,” said John.  The alcohol was starting to affect his brain and he decided that the thing to do was to just _own it_ , and lay on the floor like he had meant to all along.

            “Eridan,” Aradia said in a warning voice, “you don’t want to talk to John like that.  He climbed the mountain!  He met with Pyralsprite and didn’t get eaten!  And he killed the monster that was making him rampage!”  She jabbed Eridan’s chest with her finger.  “You have _no_ excuse not to go up there and earn your wings now!”  She narrowed her eyes.  “And didn’t you and John have a _wager_?”

            “Actually you did all those things,” said John before he could think it over.

            Aradia slapped her forehead.  “Dammit John I was trying to get you the Pearl.”  John slapped his own forehead and wondered how in all the hells he could be a hero with that kind of stupidity.

            Eridan looked down at his feet, seeming troubled.  Once or twice he opened his mouth as if to speak only to shut it, a slight violet flush appearing on his cheeks.  “Well,” he said, trying to make it sound like it didn’t pain him extremely, “he did make it all the way.”  And without further ado, he passed it on, to the shock and surprise of all present. 

            The Prince hissed at the staring eyes.  “Sweet merciful Nayru I’m not that bad am I?”  He was met with silence.  Eridan growled.  “I don’t care what you all think!  I’m going to go and get my wings first thing in the morning and then you’ll have to find some other spiritual leader to look down your noses at!”  He spun on his heel and marched over to the Empress’s table; she leapt down from it and swept him up in an embrace.

            “You’ve matured!” she shouted, voice trembling with emotion.  “Thank Din, Nayru, Farore, and any other gods you care to name!”

 

            The next morning, with the sun rising over the ocean, a thin line of pink on the horizon showing through the water, John and Roxy loaded up the boat.  John was feeling like someone had gone at his brain with a cheese grater and was wishing he was dead or at least asleep, and his ears were hanging so low he was surprised they hadn’t melted off, but he had the Pearl in his hands and it kept him warm as he shivered against the morning chill.  It was still early December after all and the winter was not merely coming but already in progress.

            Roxy in contrast was positively kittenish, ears perked up all the way.  “This is so great John!  We’ve accomplished something!” she was busily loading supplies into Jaspers’ hull.  John was glad of it, because he was sure he wouldn’t be able to do anything in the state he was in.  Jaspers meowed contentedly, happy to see his friends again after their time apart and eager to set off once more.

            The trolls had formally seen them off last night, and now only a few were watching them from the entrance to the hollow mountain; the rest were off watching the Prince engage on his journey into manhood.  Presumably that’s where Aradia was.  A gull cried in the distance.  “Where to next?” John asked, looking at the Pearl more than at the boat but still listening intently.

            “South,” said Jaspers.  Some of the trolls uphill, who had heard him, started.  One began to ramble about how he was right and not crazy until a highblood shooshed him into submission.  Ignoring them, the cat-boat turned and gave him a friendly smile.  “Farore’s Pearl will be the easiest one to get considering where we are now.  That’s in Forest Haven, where the Carapacians live.  Their king is very nice; he’ll probably give us the thing without any trouble!”  John nodded, slowly to avoid making his head feel anymore like shit than it already did.  He didn’t think he could handle anything with _any_ sort of difficulty now.

            “How don’t you feel like garbage?” John asked Roxy weakly.  “You drank way more than I did!”

            Roxy smirked.  “I drank a cup of water for every cup of alcohol, ate a whole bunch, and took breaks.  Also I’ve built up _hella tolerance,_ ” she added with a playful wink.

            Roxy was going to take care of the sail as John steered the rudder just like on the way over; once again John was perfectly content to have to do as little as possible when every motion made him feel like he was going to vomit.  He stepped into the water, every nerve firing in agony against the cold and he asked every god he knew about to damn Aradia, and the nation of Labrynna, and the very concept of rum.

            A streak of red and brown swept down from the sky and smashed into him, pressing John into a bone crushing hug just as he was about to step onto the boat.  In fact, since he had a leg up already, he fell backwards into the water.  Roxy, being sensible, caught the Pearl in midair to the applause of the watching trolls.

            “You weren’t going to leave without me were you John?” asked Aradia’s smiling, exuberant face, the great weight of her wet hair pulling her head uncomfortably close.

            John blinked.  “What?”

            “Well of course I’m coming with you!” Aradia announced, shocked that he could even say otherwise.

            Roxy reached out over the edge of the boat and threw her arm around Aradia’s neck.  “YES!  This is so awesome!  I’m so happy!  Say she can come John!  Please!”  They both looked at him and fluttered their eyelashes.  “Pleaaaaase?” they asked in tandem.

            John sighed.  He would like to believe he was the leader of this expedition but the pair of them being cute together like this would likely render him incapable of making rational decisions altogether, at least without their say-so.  “Fine,” he breathed.  The pair of them shouted in celebration and jumped for joy, shaking Jaspers until he roared in discomfort, sending the fragile troll uphill into a spasmodic fit.

 

            There was a favorable northerly wind, which slightly irked John, who had wanted to practice some more with the Breath Waker.  “There will come another time to use it,” said Jaspers, voice going sagely yet again.  “And many more thereafter.  You may tire of it before the end.”

            Aradia and Roxy chattered together as the day wore on.  Aradia had been seeing off Eridan apparently, and had flown right off the mountain as soon as he entered the caverns to join them.  The Empress had laughingly given her blessing, as had Pyralsprite.  “But the most important thing to me,” she said conspiratorially, “is this!”  Aradia opened up her bag and pulled out Terezi’s harp.  John and Roxy watched it glint in the sunlight with admiration.

            “Want to play us something?” Roxy asked eagerly.

            “How about you conduct me John?” Aradia asked.

            John opened his mouth to say yes and Jaspers gave a sudden lurch as he passed over an ocean swell and John threw up over the edge until his gums bled.  “Maybe later,” he said, sounding absolutely miserable.  At the very least, the pressure in his head had lessened.

            Aradia gently stroked his ear, sliding a finger down into his hair.  “I’m sorry,” she said sadly.  “I guess that prank…was less funny than I thought it would be.”  John smiled weakly and nodded as emphatically as he could.

            Roxy cleared her throat after an awkward little while.  “That harp is pretty impressive you know,” she said.  “But can it do more than just look and sound pretty?” she gave a roguish grin.  “Is it… _magical_?”

            “ _Yes_!” Aradia said.  “It is!  Very magical!”

            “Can you show us?” asked John.

            Aradia shook her head enthusiastically.  “Nope!  I’ve never even tried to use magic!”

            Roxy rubbed her hands together conspiratorially.  “I can teach you guys!  It’s so easy and _damn useful,_ I’m surprised that not everyone does it.”

 

            The distance from Dragonroost to Forest Haven was easily more than twice that from Windfall to Dragonroost, which had taken a good part of the day.  “How much longer?” asked Aradia, the eagerness leaking just slightly from her voice.  It would soon be time for the sun to set, and to their right the sea was ablaze with flakes of gold as it approached the horizon.

            Jaspers turned his sinuous neck to look at her awkwardly under the sail.  “We’ll get there in a few hours if we sail through the night!”

            Roxy gasped with false excitement.  “Yeah we’re _not_ doing that!” she said.

            Jaspers was nonplussed and looked back to the south again.  “Okay,” he said, “there’s an island coming up where you can rest.”

            “Oh there was no worry about islands,” Roxy joked with a dismissive yet playful wave of her hand.  “I mean, if we had the time and the killer abs, we could just swim from island to island and _not even worry_ about boats _at all_!  That’s one thing you can say about the Great Sea.”

            The island in question was low and somewhat flat, almost perfectly round but with a little spit of land stretching out into the water, like a tail, or the fuse of a bomb.  It was thickly wooded and the children had no trouble securing Jaspers to a tree.  They saw that there was a squat knoll that someone had cut terraces into.  The soil was rocky, but very rich and black, and unnaturally warm, hot even, though they thought nothing of it. 

            The trees, John noticed, had pale yellow and grey-streaked wood, and did not grow naturally as far south as Outset.  Forest Haven was about level with it on their charts, and this island was not too far from there, so he wondered if this had been some sort of experimental tree farm.

            Before the sun had quite set, the party had built itself a lovely fire with a hit of Roxy’s magic.  John went off and made himself a crude harpoon by carving a few points onto a stick and speared himself a fish, which Aradia prepared as a stew.  By the time it was cooking, the sun was gone; there was the slightest hint of red on the horizon, with a band of very dull yellow and, visible to the careful eye, another band of palest green separating it from the increasingly darker shades of blue and purple until the deep, dense canopy directly above, in which a single star had begun to shine.  “It’s the mother of all monsters,” said Roxy, pointing up at it.  “She’s crying over her poor babies who get slaughtered every day.”

            Aradia shook her head.  “Echidna lives in the ocean, far away to the south, in a land where it’s night for half the year and daytime for the other half.  The nights are so cold that everything turns to ice, but come sunrise it all melts away in seconds and life reemerges.  Plants spring up, frogs unfreeze, and the Iguanas come out of hibernation and fill the steaming jungles with their poetry until nightfall comes again.”

            The two of them looked at John expectantly.  He was at a complete loss.  “Well,” he began, “um, once my nana told us about the Ghost Ship,” he said.  The girls nodded their heads.  “It appears all over the Great Sea,” he said, feeling encouraged, “whenever the moon rises.  It looks like an _ancient_ wreck that’s been pulled to the surface, covered in barnacles and leaking rust like bloody wounds!  And it’s surrounded by blue foxfire all over.”  John made an expansive gesture.  Inspired, he picked up a branch from the fire and waved it around, tracing patterns in the air with its burning tip. “They say that a famous cartographer charted its appearances.”

            “How?” asked Roxy, grinning, leaning her head on her fists.  Aradia said nothing, positively enraptured by the idea of a scary story.

            “It would appear off the coast of a different island depending on the phases of the moon,” John said smartly.  “Anyway, he followed it wherever it appeared and he marked the island and the phase of the moon on his chart.  It was a beautiful chart, made with royal purple ink on tanned rayskin,” he was unsure about that but it sounded cool so he threw it in, “Some say it was a highblood troll,” he said, making up even more things, “and that he used his own blood to draw the chart, because as he went on, he went more and more insane.  I mean, how can you see something like the Ghost Ship so often and stay sane?  But troll or not, once it was completed,” John whispered, “once _every_ island where the Ghost Ship was seen was marked with the right phase of the moon,” he paused for dramatic effect, “he died.”

            Roxy gasped.  Aradia squealed with joy.  She looked around with almost desperate fervor.  “Is this one of the islands?” she wondered.  “What moon is it tonight!?”

            “Shut up,” said Roxy, ears lowered defensively, “it’s just a story.”

            “Nope,” said John, feeling mischievous, “it’s a true fact!” 

            Aradia unfurled her wings and fluttered upwards, still struggling to fly and only barely clearing the canopy of trees.  “The moon just rose!” she announced.  “It’s a half moon!” she said as she touched down amid the group again.  Then she bent down over the cookpot and tasted it with a wooden spoon.  “And this needs more salt,” she said, in the exact same tone.

            “Well,” said Roxy, arms folded, “the moon rose and nothing happened.”

            John chuckled.  “Were you actually scared?”

            “No,” Roxy insisted forcefully.  “Gimme my stew!”  She held out her bowl emphatically, the subject officially closed.

 

            By the time they had finished, many more stars had come out, but a fog was beginning to roll in, obscuring their light.  “Okay,” said Roxy, sounding much more satisfied and much less nervous.  “Magic though you guys!”

            John nodded.  “What can you teach us?”

            “Well,” Roxy started primly, “my shadow-based magic is totally advanced and only Sheikah can ever master it, but all Hylians,” she gestured to Aradia, “and lowbloods especially, have at least a little bit of magic in them.”

            She snapped her fingers and small red flame blew up on her fingertips like the flame of a match.  Aradia ‘oohed’.  “This is called Din’s fire,” said Roxy.  “It’s a pretty basic spell though I’m not very good at it.  Like I said, the Sheikah are all about shadows and stuff.  Still, pretty much anyone can do it.”

            Aradia tried snapping her fingers, only to discover that she didn’t know how.  John _did_ know how, but was unable to do anything at all.  Roxy sighed.  “No you guys,” she said, “you need to, like,” she struggled for a way to explain it, having never had to actually _teach_ anyone anything, “ _Feel_ unrelenting force inside yourself!  The power of fire belongs to Din, and Din is the goddess of power!  You need to find your inner Din and let her out—”

            Aradia burst into flames for an instant and her companions stared at her as she sat, steaming, in front of the fire, a look of perfect happiness on her face.  “I let out my inner goddess,” she whispered, finding the phrase funny.

            John tried to do something, wanting to be just as impressive, but couldn’t quite get the hang of it.  “Try to think of something that makes you feel powerful,” Roxy said helpfully. 

            John immediately thought of the Breath Waker.  He produced his deck of cards.  The Ace of Gears—he absently recalled snatching the motor from Hephaestus’s great hammer at some point but the whole thing was hazy between the god’s emergence and waking up at the foot of the mountain.  He shuffled the card back into the deck.  No, the Prince of Wands was the obvious home for the magic rod, and he stared at it for a second, wondering how he hadn’t thought of it before.  A magical tool for magical spells, of course—

            No, but he hadn’t felt powerful at all when he had played it before.  He’d felt free, and that was something entirely different.  As he stared at the card, he knew that it was not sacred to Din and he would never be able to conjure her fire with it.  He put it back in the deck and thought some more.

            His hammer.  It made John shiver a little to think of the things he’d done with it.  He’d killed—monsters yes, but he’d killed and Echidna would weep for her children no matter how monstrous—but that in itself did not make him feel powerful.  But when he’d been a blacksmith’s apprentice all that little while ago, it had made him feel magnificent.  When he was shaping metal into something useful, he thought he could do anything.

            John unslung the hammer from his back and held it out in front of him in a defensive stance.  He felt something surging up from his stomach, which he absently thought of as odd before pushing it outward, through his hands into the hammer, up the handle and into the head—

            And it erupted in a brilliant blue gas flame that propelled it into a swing against his will like a jet engine, spinning John around at high speed three times, holding on so tightly his nails scored the handle.  Dizzy, he fell to the ground.  “Did…” he began, trying to keep steady, “did I do that right?”

            “That was _awesome,_ John!” said Roxy, eyes lighting up.  “You just did the legendary Sheikah spinning slash!  With a hammer!  _That_ is impressive!”

            “And with blue fire too,” added Aradia.  “That’s way hotter than red fire.”  John chuckled proudly and sat back down.

            The children chatted for a while yet, and the brilliant half-moon shone over the canopy, light only amplified and reflected by the ever thickening fog by the time they decided to go to bed.  A slight tremor shook them, but so slight that they barely felt it at all, with the exception of Aradia, who felt them damn near all the time and tended to ignore them much as she tried to ignore her attendants and their cold, dead gaze.  They did not think to set a watch as they said their goodnights, trusting to Jaspers’ unsleeping gaze to warn them of danger.

 

            [The moon was high overhead](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0--Of-KdU-8) when the figure that had been watching them emerged from the wood.  Jaspers saw the small, pale old Hylian and meowed a greeting.  He grunted noncommittally and stepped over John’s sleeping body to stand on the shore.  The ground underneath was steaming.  The pale man held a chart, an ancient thing made of rayskin and troll blood, and looked up at the sky.  He made a sound somewhere between a sharp exhalation of breath and a guffawing laugh.

            Just off shore, a hulking wreck of a ship rose from the sea, surrounded by cold foxfire.  It sailed against the wind, making no impact on the water, leaving no wake, but as real as anything.  “It looks haunted,” said Jaspers, conversationally.  The bright night was quickly darkening, as if the fog had turned to smoke, but smoke as cold as the grave.

            “It’s going to make me rich,” said the pale man.

            The island rumbled, much harder this time.  A loud boom shook the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday was my dad’s birthday, which lands on the day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which you may or may not know is an incarnation of the Virgin Mary. 12 12 is also a Kanaya day if you go by the pseudo-canonical way of determining your patron troll: 1+2+1+2=6. Kanaya’s ancestor is naturally the troll equivalent of the Virgin Mary. To quote the fabulous [ rezi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rezi/pseuds/rezi): “Everything is Homestuck. _Everything_.”  
>  So good to be back in fanfiction, being met with the accolades of the crowds of people who share my interests, and so good to be back with Breath Waker after _OMDNF three months???_ 0_0 I’m so sorry! *cries*  
>  Oh, hey two Zelda songs in this chapter! To make up for the last one of course.  
> So yeah, we’re going a bit off the rails here, but the train is still coasting along next to the rails, and if the tracks make a sharp turn we’ll be able to get back on so we can comfortably straddle the original plot until we build up enough speed to take glorious flight! Not really spoilers: the tower of the gods will make a nonsense of you and the canon and everything you hold dear ^_^


	12. Dead Man's Vvolley

            “Who the fuck are you!?”

            “CHHHOOOOOAAA[1]!”

            “Jaspers you were supposed to warn us about this kind of stuff!”

            “Meow!”

            “Holy fuck the Ghost Ship is right there fuck you John fuck you forever—”

            “The island’s exploding!” said Aradia, pointing up at the plume of lava that was rising up from the center.  Much of the forest had erupted into flames from mere convection and soon the molten rock would come raining down on their heads in pyroclastic fury.

            The strange small man was already wading his way over to Jaspers.  He was pale and stout, with hair that had probably been very blonde when he was young and had beady little eyes.  He wore an expensive looking white coat and a huge, blue, cheap looking stovepipe hat.  Jaspers meowed happily.

            “Don’t let that creep on board!” Roxy demanded, just as the stranger brandished a baggie of catnip at the figurehead.  It was too late; Jaspers was entirely on his side.

            John looked at the approaching wall of fire.  “No time for that Roxy, let’s go!”

            “The Ghost Ship though…” she said, hesitantly.  It was far too close to shore; such a massive ship should have run aground.  The once magnificent galleon was longer than the island and several times taller, but it seemed to float on the surface like a leaf on a pond.

            “It’s transparent,” said John.  “Maybe we can just sail through?”  He was already running out onto the boat, getting out his pocket knife to cut the line.

            “If we stay here,” said Aradia, watching the cherry red glow of the eruption, “we’re going to die.  If we leave, we might live.”

            Roxy sniffed at such a poor choice and damned herself for not wanting to sail at night.  “From now on,” she said, dashing into the cold water, “we don’t stop anywhere, especially if it seems nice!”

            Aradia took a running leap and unfurled her wings, gliding the short distance to Jaspers’ hull and never once touching the water.

            “This boat is far too crowded,” Roxy said, glaring at the stranger.

            “I can sit five more people,” Jaspers reassured.  Aradia took charge of the sail while Roxy busily inspected the visitor.

            “Who the fuck are you!?” she snapped.  “Why were you just sneaking into our camp like a creeper?”

            “You may call me Old Man Ho Ho,” said Old Man Ho Ho.  Roxy knew in her bones that that was a pseudonym.  “And I was waiting for the Ghost Ship to appear.”

            “Fuck you,” she said.

            “Why,” said John, eyeing the thing warily.  The light from the eruption was not illuminating it; it remained cold and blue as if it were not truly a part of this world, but somewhere else, and they were merely looking at it from a great distance.  He carefully tried to steer Jaspers away from it, but try as he might, they only got closer and closer.

            “The ship wants what is the ship’s,” Ho Ho said sagely.

            “Once again,” Roxy said sharply.

            In response, Ho Ho produced the chart.  Roxy and John felt coldness in the pits of their stomachs.  Aradia however squealed with delight.  “The story really was real!” she shouted.

            “We’re gonna crash,” said Jaspers with the same cheerful indifference that he said almost everything.

            “We’ll pass right through,” John said firmly, trying to convince everyone including himself.

            “At last,” said Ho Ho, “The Triumph—” he commenced a clearly faked coughing fit somewhere in the second syllable.  It had been entirely unnecessary, because at that moment Jaspers’s nose touched the ethereal planks of the Ghost Ship and everything went black.

 

            Aradia had never seen a palace before, a _proper_ palace and not the Empress’s boudoir of course, but she thought that her current surroundings came quite close.  The deck of the ship was covered in splendid carvings, wood painted gold depicting scenes that she could barely imagine the context to, sculptures of gods and demons that she had no name for.  Behind her, the magnificent stem of the ship transformed into a figurehead shaped like the head of a dragon that was the spitting image of Pyralsprite, covered in scales of burnished, silvery metal.  There was a hatch for someone to climb up into, and inside his head were a pair of ruby colored lanterns.

            All around her circular tables were being set up for dinner by dozens of lowbloods in extravagant clothing, beautiful full sleeved coats and dresses in vibrant colors with metallic embroidery and printed images, with huge lacy cuffs and hooks instead of buttonholes, elaborate straps and buckles and feathers and things she didn’t even know the name for, all stuff out of a fairy tale. 

            If that was how the servants looked, the highbloods dancing in the center with their elaborate masques and finest silks were objects of indescribable beauty.  They looked at her with something like detached interest and for the first time in her life Aradia felt just slightly inadequate.  After all, here she was, a lowblood, and not even dressed for the party.  She self-consciously touched her forehead—

            And her hand darted back in shock at the touch of her hair.  For the first time ever it felt _silky_ and _smooth,_ and from the weight distribution someone had pulled it up onto her head into a sort of knot, from which only a few artfully selected locks hung.  Looking down at herself, she saw that her adventuring clothes had been replaced by an elegant ball gown of brilliant crimson, like human blood streaked with burgundy and patterned with maroon.  The skirt was _incredibly_ frilly she noted.

            Above, strings of lanterns made of gold beaten to such fineness that it was light-transparent shone, casting a warm, cheerful light on the scene.  The odd thing was that each and every person here had a lantern clipped to their belt, lit with a cold blue flame that gave no light.

            A sea-dweller approached her and offered a deep bow.  He had a harpoon gun slung on his back that crackled with purple magicks and a pair of wicked scars across his handsome face that made him look incredibly dashing.  “Est du mid mésaltest?” he asked in Old High Trollish. 

            It occurred to Aradia that everyone here was _long_ dead.  She offered a wild grin and a deep curtsy.  “Sure!”  The ghost took her hand, and she felt proud of herself for bringing some ease to this curious afterlife.

           

            John was unaware of how he had wound up in the ship’s hold, or in the ship at all, if it was in fact a ship.  The rocking underneath and the sound of waves and the wooden textures underhand reassured him that it was, but something, some inner sense, told him that he was careening across the water entirely without support, and that there was nothing around him at all, except for that silly, pale little man with his ridiculous hat, the only thing in his line of sight that was entirely present and therefore visible despite the darkness.  The old man let out another sound like choking and laughing at once and John realized why Roxy had disliked him so intently.  “What the fuck,” said John.

            “We’re aboard the ghost ship,” said Ho Ho, rubbing his hands together conspiratorially.

            “I only play the straight man for people like Roxy,” John said warningly.  “I can be plenty whacky when I want to be.”  He unslung his hammer and his shield, smiling inwardly at his pun.

            “Look here boy,” said Ho Ho, gesturing grandly; there were boxes and chests and jars all around, and, as John’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he noticed that each was fill to the brim with rupees and precious metal.  His eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

            “No one would come with me on this adventure willingly, I’m afraid,” Ho Ho explained, “but there are unspeakable rewards for a very little risk, really, when you think about it.  You and your companions may take as much as you wish _but_ ,” he raised a finger, “you must help me find a thing.  A particular thing amid all this rubbish.”

            “What thing?” John asked, raising an eyebrow.

            “A shard of gold,” he said.  “A triangle, broken and jagged on one side but shaped on the other two.  The artifact is about as thick as two fingers.”

            John looked around.  There was more gold here than anyone could ever want, not to mention more valuable things like rupees.  “It is a valuable historical artifact,” Ho Ho explained.  “A minor thing, useless to the uneducated except for its weight in gold of course, which is comparatively little, but it is one of very few such things and I must have them all,” he said, eyes bright with hunger. 

            John took a step back.  “Where are the girls?”

            “Help me first,” said Ho Ho.  “Everything else in its time.”

 

            The ship was half rotted and had no right to still be sailing anywhere, thought Roxy, as her foot squished through a plank that had ceased to be wood ages ago.  She was stalking her way through the labyrinthine below-decks of the Ghost Ship, every bit of which was swarming with monstrous crew.  [The thing was staffed by a crew of Stalfos, skeletons animated by dark magic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WWdOjxoQro).  Their bones were black and their skulls crowned with horns that had long ago dulled from their fiery color, and they went about their daily tasks as they had when they were alive. No, better; they didn’t have any pesky emotions or freewill or probably even a mind to slow them down and keep them from their tasks.

            It was easy to avoid them; the damn things didn’t have eyes after all; it was easier than sneaking past living people and that was easy enough; she’s dyed her hair partly because she wanted a bit more of a challenge.

            There were regularly spaced hatches leaking strange, dim blue light into the ship.  At the end of the corridor, a short stairway connected to the surface, illuminated in the same curious light.  It was a long stretch from where she was with few hiding places, and she didn’t even know what she would find up on the deck, but it seemed there was nothing else she could do.  Roxy drew a knife, took a brief slug of gin from a hidden flask (she had an array of concealed flasks as impressive as her stash of knives) and bolted down the corridor, willing the shadows to conceal her as she ran.

            Then a winged shadow suddenly blocked the light ahead of her, standing between her and freedom.  It emitted a sound, something like an alarm but unlike any she had ever heard.  Not bothering to slow down or ask questions Roxy hurled a knife at the apparition and produced two more.  It raised its left hand—or was it a wing?—it was holding a rod tipped with a red jewel and her knife shattered in midair with a flash of red sparks and a carbon smell.  Roxy growled and took a flying leap at the thing, aiming both her legs at the center of its chest—

            And it was gone.  Roxy smashed uselessly into the stairs and took a brief tumble, almost cutting herself on her own knives.  The sound started up again.  Roxy sprang to her feet and turned, and saw the creature as it materialized under a lit hatch.  It wore a black robe with a red hood—or did it?  The way the cloth moved was unnatural, as if it were not merely being filled by a shape but fully animated.  The full sleeves rippled and fluttered like bat wings, and hands did not emerge from the ends: rather the cloth stretched up from the elbows into short , shapeless fingers, one holding a three foot rod, glowing red yet somehow not illuminating anything.  She wondered if it was just an animated robe, until she saw the face.  A face of real flesh, covered in black feathers, with huge eyes colored like a metallic rainbow on either side of its head—it turned to the left in order to look at her, like a bird, and that gave her a good look at the monster’s beak.  The thing was nearly four feet long and looked powerful enough to crush stone.  An electric blue tongue flickered in and out.  The mandible was black and covered in twisting red-orange and blue patterns that looked almost like flames. 

            It opened its beak and laughed, a sound something like the cooing of a dove, and then it shouted, an echoing ‘PAH’ that seemed to come from a long distance, while slashing its rod downwards like a sword.  The stone glinted, and issued a ball of fire that quickly split into three.  Roxy ducked under the attack, the heart from the flames almost singing her back, and withdrew the pictobox.  She didn’t particularly care for taking the monster’s information down, but once she’d gotten in close, she set off the flash and it screamed, a sound almost like a mad turkey’s gobbling.  It dropped its rod and covered its eyes with its hand-sleeves, spinning around and beeping.  Roxy stabbed it in the back—it felt somehow both fleshy and hollow—and it gobbled again before disappearing.

            The Stalfos sailors continued their drudgery.  They were probably not very bright, Roxy concluded, before snatching up the rod.  The beeping started up again so suddenly that she almost dropped it and the creature—the pictograph that had fallen to the ground read ‘wizzrobe’—appeared further down the hall.  It emitted the cooing sound again and all the Stalfos snapped to attention.  Once more, and their eyes flared red.  Each skull pivoted on its vertebrae and locked eyes with Roxy.  She blinked.  “Pchoo!” she said, pointing the rod as hard as she could.  A streak of pink light shot from the gem and struck one of them in the head, shattering its skull.  Roxy barely had time to enjoy her newfound magical thingy before they all pounced.

 

            John was quickly growing frustrated.  After filling his laughably small wallet with rupees he had sifted through two dozen crates of ancient cargo, most of it clothing so stiff with dust and fossilized rat droppings that it was razor sharp and found nothing at all of value, but worse, the more time he wasted here, the more time he was away from his friends.  He would just leave, but firstly he had no idea where to go and secondly Old Man Ho Ho seemed to know what was up, or at least have some vague idea.  He could hear the old man mumbling from the other side of the hold and saw the tip of his blue cap bobbing up and down amid the increasingly larger pile of rubbish. 

            John sighed and kicked the chest he was searching out of the way, spilling its contents all over the floor.  There was a hole worn into the wall to his right ( _starboard bulkhead_ , he thought, happily reveling in his nautical discourse) and a little ray of blue light shone into the hold.  He’d looked through other such chinks, they were all around, and seen something disturbing.  He’d assumed that the odd color and quality of light was due to it being nighttime, never mind that it had been so dark when they entered the ghost ship, but upon looking outside he saw that the sun was high in the sky, late morning or early afternoon if he could see it from inside.  However, the sun was a dim, deep indigo, staring dully down at the almost flat ocean below.  The Ghost Ship was not of his world, and he feared they had gone beyond it.

            This sliver of light however, shown on something interesting; a pure white lily like a miniature trumpet, growing from a chink in the floorboards, a spot of life and color in this dull, dead place.  Ho Ho shouted absently to himself, “The Triumph Forks!”  What the hell was he babbling about?  That urban legend about magical wish-granting cutlery?  What kind of idiot _was_ he?  John decided that he’d been wrong, Ho Ho was senile and he wanted nothing else to do with the man, and just then he noticed something glinting in the chink the flower was growing from.  It pained him slightly, but he pulled it out; the lilly came away easily for such a little thing, and tangled in its roots was a little chip of gold, the exact shape and dimensions that Ho Ho had described.  It seemed to twinkle with a light that was all its own.  John glanced over at the man and pocketed it.  “Hey I’m leaving,” he said.

            “No you must continue searching,” said Ho Ho, hungry looking face emerging from a rubbish heap, face sweaty and red.

            John cringed.  “Yeah no, I’m going to go find my friends—”

            [A creature appeared](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_ZCy5u0Fqs&feature=kp) in the center of the room, like a big cloak with a huge bird where the head goes and, curiously, a knife in its back.  John wondered if it was supposed to be that way, like some sort of impaled bird apparition ghost thing and concluded that that was stupid.  It tilted its head to the side to get a good look with its big, metallic eyes, and then it started beeping loudly and incessantly in alarm.  Glowing-eyed Stalfos marched into the room, weapons glinting, and leapt at John soundlessly.

            John smashed through the first one’s ribcage with a two handed blow and its bones clattered to the floor uselessly.  The second skidded to a stop just behind him on its toes and tried to headbut John with its horns, but John jumped out of the way and struck it in the face with the rim of his shield, smashing its skull with a quick lunge.  A third emerged and took a swing with its weapon, a rusty metal racket, rectangular in shape, which was glowing blue.  John did not find this unusual and blocked the strike with his shield.  The weapon discharged a load of blue sparks like lightning and John jumped back in surprise.  More of them were closing in, and many held the glowing rackets.  Paying no mind, Ho Ho went about with his ratlike scurrying.  No one else seemed to notice him.

            Another Stalfos leapt _and who the hell decided these things should jump like that?_   But John sidestepped the attack and crushed its spine with a backhanded blow.  A pair of them came at him, rackets sparking, and John decided to try out something new.  He reached for that feeling of unstoppable power—it was easy, with hammer in hand—and felt himself being propelled across the room, spinning at high speeds.  With a pair of healthy crunches the Stalfos pirates fell to the ground, ruined, and their bones crackled and popped from the heat.  He wondered if bone was naturally that flammable and concluded that it was probably the magic—

            And felt a hideous pain coursing through his body as one of the spark-rackets struck him in the leg.  Sparks filled the air and he tasted blood; John fell limply to the floor and saw the Stalfos he’d broken in half, walking on its hands with its racket in its teeth.  Then they were upon him.

 

            “Héo béon sé **_Çásernes_** þínen,” explained the captain. Aradia assumed he was the captain, at least.  He was holding her close as they spun round the dance floor, explaining something about his past.  It was difficult to translate in her head—of _course_ a good archaeologist has passable (at _least!_ ) Old High Trollish, but she could tell it was important, and had probably led directly to his death.  A woman he knew, who had worked closely with the Empress at the time.  Judging from his dialect, he must have been living under the rule of one of the most tyrannical Empresses ever to rule.  “Damara æfreda wæs **,”** he growled, face livid.  She took a moment to admire his teeth; even more sharklike than Eridan’s, who had the sharpest examples she’d ever seen.  Troglopology was the best branch of archaeology, she thought _._   “ **Tó sum _Ealdwita_ béonne,** ” he spat; the air shook around him, as if rippling in the heat.  His words felt…heavy.

            It occurred to Aradia that he was in all likelihood a Poe, a kind of ghost she’d never met before.  They were usually unaware they’d died, and were animated entirely by their negative emotions.  That was it, she realized.  They were all out here trying to drown out their negativity.  He’d fallen in love with a lowblood, or so Aradia had deduced, who looked like her, hence the uncharacteristically good reception.  The Empress, just out of spite, had sent the lowblood away to be a…something.  Regardless, she was entirely beyond his power, and so he’d taken his entire court out here and…died somehow.  That she could not figure out.  Regardless, this was a fascinating way to learn about ancient peoples!

            However, as fun as it was to figure out puzzles, she was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that he had latched onto her as some sort of replacement for his lowblood girl.  “Cwide þú setl?” he asked softly.  Ah, there it was.  “Ælfscíene forÞwíf?”  Aww, to think two words could carry that much adoration; he must really have loved his lowblood girl—or been very creepily obsessed with her.

            Aradia shook her head and politely explained that she could no, or at least tried to as her grammar was atrocious.  “Haben þú sum…Déorcynnum ansíen?” she asked, hesitating slightly on the word for ‘human’.  The captain raised his eyebrow.  There was no polite way to say it in his dialect, and trolls had considered all non-trolls ‘Déorcynnae’.  Aradia absently clicked her tongue as she thought of what to say.  “Hie beon meine freondas,” she added hopefully.  A dark pall came across the ghost’s face and he hissed, exposing once again his fascinating teeth. 

            Just as he was about to speak, something happened that filled Aradia’s face with a look of absolute joy.  She broke away from his grasp, not caring about her rudeness whatsoever, eyes bright and smile wide.  Her friends were being escorted from belowdecks by some wonderful gentlemen—of course she knew they were Stalfos, animated skeletons weren’t nearly the same thing as ghosts, what idiot would assume that all undead creatures were the same—in much rougher piratey costumes than the ghosts up top.  Clearly the low-blooded sailors, as opposed to personal servants above-decks, had no emotional connection to the incident and had simply moved on after death, forcing their masters to reanimate—aha!  There, the wizzrobe responsible!  His race hadn’t been seen in the living world for ages, this would be a perfect opportunity to make a sketch!

 

            John’s eyes filled with horror at the grim tableau before him as he was forced to his knees on the rough planks of the dark, dilapidated wreck.  Aradia, dressed in rags and grinning like a madwoman, had clearly been driven insane by the ghosts.  There were dozens of them, horrible black blobs shrouded in darkness, dressed in scraps of colorful cloth and masquerade masks, as if to hide their true, horrible face from the rest of the world.  The wreckage of the ship’s stem-figurehead loomed like the rotting corpse of a huge animal; what was it supposed to be, a whale?  One of the Poes, armed with a glowing harpoon, the only one without a mask screeched at him and Roxy and placed a twisted claw on Aradia’s shoulder defensively.  “Hey guys!” she said with a wave.  “This is the captain, I think!”

            The ghost started babbling at the wizzrobe in some strange language, and the wizzrobe might have responded in the same language for all John knew; its voice was so thickly accented he couldn’t tell if he was talking at all or just chortling in its birdly way.

            “They’re saying that they caught you sneaking around downstairs,” Aradia translated, “trying to steal the sea-dweller’s treasures.”  She gasped.  “Is that true?”

            “Hell yeah,” said Roxy, just as John loudly declared “ _no_!”  “I see your pockets bulging with rupees Johnny,” said Roxy with a roll of her eyes.  “And they don’t seem to speak our language anyway.”  A Stalfos cuffed her in the back of the head and she winced, glaring up at the creature.  “Rae-Rae can lie for you right?”

            “They actually speak a very old version of our own language,” said Aradia absently, before beginning to converse with the captain very rapidly and John thought to himself that he probably had the least amount of useful skills in the group, as he spoke only one language and could barely magic at all.  Was magic even a verb?  _Dammit_.

            “Oh,” she said, looking surprised.  “he said that he’s never going to let me go but the two of you are free to—wait, where’s the Old Man?” she said, taking care to pronounce the capitals.

            Roxy snorted.  “Who cares?  He got us into this so he can just get himself out!  _Ow!_ ”  The Stalfos had hit her again.

            “But what about you?” asked John.  “You can’t stay here forever!  You’ll…” he looked around, “get tetanus, at the very least!”

            The Poe hissed and a pair of thunderbolts crackled at its head.  It was becoming more cohesive in shape, more humanoid.  Two lines of fire like cracks of light appeared where its face should be.  It took a step forward with its newly formed feet—

            And Aradia stepped in front of it, arms outstretched, speaking in frantic…whatever it was.  “ **Þú earon _blac_ fore diese kreatur?**”  Aradia choked, and set her teeth, glaring up at the monstrous shape.  Then it stepped _through_ her, temporarily becoming like purple mist, and she shouted, jumping away from the painful chill. 

            It raised a crooked hand and leveled its finger at John.  “ **Ich will agon-gamen git, O wilde!** ”  It drew its harpoon, crackling with purple light. 

            Aradia seemed ready to rush the Poe, but another, this one in a pale porcelain mask that imitated a fat human face, stuck its hand through her shoulder; she groaned and stood still, leaking purple mist and unable to move.  “He says,” she began, wincing in pain; the Poe chuckled, something between a child’s laugh and the rattling of bone, “that he challenges you to a duel.” 

            John leapt to his feet.  “I accept!”  The other Poes joined in the wretched laughter, their masks clattering against nothing in an imitation of life. 

            “A ‘game of pain’ specifically,” Aradia elaborated.

            “ **Toten Mannes Vvolley,** ” he said, rising up into the air.  He hung over the ship near the ruinous crow’s nest, glaring down with violent purple eyes like some damned angel of death.  Despite her less than stellar position, Aradia could not help but crack half a grin and ‘ooh’.  “Dead Man’s Volley,” she breathed, “a very popular form of duel in the last days of the Empire.  He’s going to attack you with magic and you have to reflect it back at him, and it keeps going back and forth until someone dies!”

            “What!?” John snapped.  “I can’t reflect magic—”

            “Use Din’s Fire Johnny,” Roxy said.  Her Stalfos, proving itself to be somewhat of a bitch despite a complete lack of a personality, cuffed her again.  She growled.  “You can reflect magic _with_ magic, just use Din’s Fire on your hammer again and you’ll be fine!”

            “ ** _Earon þú fuslic, O wwilde?”_** the Poe demanded, losing patience.  He seemed to be developing a slight stutter.

            [John rose to his feet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX0n0EpOHZs).  “I need my hammer!”  Aradia translated for him and it was provided.  No sooner was the weapon in his hand than the Poe launched a burst of purple lightning from the end of the harpoon that screamed across the air and struck John right in the chest.

            The Poes laughed at him as he rose to his feet, clothes smoking.  “You can do it!  Wooo woo!” Roxy shouted, this time catching the Stalfos’s hand and breaking it off at the wrist before it could hit her.  She waved the hand like a little semaphore flag.

            John eased his trembling muscles.  It had hurt and it was doing awful things to his movement—he found he did not enjoy electricity whatsoever—but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.  The Poe was toying with him.  He could tell from the way the others laughed, the way it spat its words when it referred to him, even though he couldn’t understand them, and the way Aradia was not translating directly, like his Nana had when the traders came up from the extreme south once in his youth, but just giving him the gist.  They thought John was beneath them.  They underestimated him.

            The hammer head ignited in a burst of red.  When the ball of lightning came for him he was ready and struck it back expertly.  The Poe returned it with a jab, and the game was on.  It fed off their energies, growing bigger and faster and more livid in color, so bright it hurt to look at, crackling with enough electricity that everyone stepped back except for the two players.  The Poe was too good at this though, and John figured he’d never hit him just punting the ball back at him.  With an underhanded feint, he sent the thing flying wide and as the Poe flew off to intercept it, John spared a glance at Aradia and she smiled and winked.

            She burst into flame and her captor squealed in agony, and Aradia ran toward John’s opponent.  “Ich lufian þú!”she shouted, and the Poe turned to look at her in shock, fiery orbs widening as a gurgling gasp escaped its ethereal lips.  In its distraction, it forgot all about the burning magical sphere and was struck in the shoulder, screaming in pain, if ghosts feel pain, and floating to the ground in a smoking spiral.

            “ ** _Facen!_** ” A Poe cried.  “ ** _Cwielman þá Déorcynnas!_** ”  And then several things happened at once.  The wizzrobe laughed in its cooing, echoing voice and raised its rod, summoning a ring of fire around John and Roxy—but Roxy was no longer there.  It looked around frantically for her as the Stalfos, without his mind for direction, ignored John as he proceeded to smash them to pieces.  A Poe rose into the air and dove for him with its lantern and Aradia felt a little twitch inside her brain.  Something went * _pop_ * and suddenly she was holding up her hand as if to call a halt, bleeding profusely from one nostril, and the Poe hung in the air, suspended.

            The wizzrobe shouted, “PAH,” readying an aurora of magic with its rod, preparing to kill her with a blow—and then Roxy was right next to it, jabbing it in the eye with her stolen, skeletal hand.  Acid-green blood sprayed out as it screamed its gobbling scream, too much in pain even to warp out of the way, and Roxy snatched up the magical rod.  “Pchoo motherfucker,” she said, and the wizzrobe burst into flame.  Within seconds, there was nothing left of the strange creature, and all of his Stalfos clattered to the ground, as dead as they had always been.  Roxy was all too eager to turn her new weapon against the Poes, using the rod as if she had been using one all her life as she fought off the ghosts.

 

            Aradia saw the captain, lying in a spreading pool of his own blood at the foot of the mast as his fabulous, eternal party collapsed around him.  The flame in his lantern was burning bright as ever, having found a new hatred to feed off, and he reached for his harpoon.  Aradia frowned.  All the other Poes were caught up in his hatred; he was the basis of everything that went on here and the Ghost Ship would continue to haunt the sea until he could move on.  Feeling wretched in the frontmost part of her brain, she sat down next to him and placed a hand on his forehead.  “It’s okay,” she said soothingly.  “Þá Çásernes toten,” she added, tapping into her psychic reserves.  “You can rest now, _restan_ , join your þínen in Heofone.” For a moment his eyes became calm, clear, almost childlike, not daring to hope.  Then he shoved her out of his way as he leapt to his feet, lantern flaring to life as a livid blaze.  The harpoon flew into his hand of its own accord. 

            “Ac…Ich beon gan æt Hell,” he whispered.  Then the captain bellowed.  “ ** _Wwilde!!”_** he shouted, “ ** _cuman wwiþ Ich_**!”  He shouldered his harpoon and unleashed a burst of magic right at John.  He turned just in time to watch a hundred livid red orbs of energy arc their way across the deck, curving as sinuously as a river of hate in the air, just in time to—

            Perform a perfect Sheikah Spinning Slash, striking each individual beam almost at once.  They retraced their path through the air perfectly, following the purple after-images in Aradia’s eyes like a roadmap back to their originator.  He was struck all at once and screamed as he was engulfed in flames.  He might have shouted his lover’s name or something poetic like that, thought Aradia, but it might just have been a scream.  All the same, he was consumed by his own hate, and the fires soon spread across the ship, the water, and the curious sky with its indigo sun, until everything went black.

 

            Jaspers meowed.  “Wake up sleepies,” he said.  The sun is up!”  It was a dull, grey morning with fog all around, but the sun was indeed up, quite high in the sky in fact.  Off in the horizon, the little round island was smoking, and the kids wondered if it had all been just a dream.

            “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE YOU FOOLISH CHILDREN!?” cried a cranky, cantankerous old-man voice.  Splashing around some several yards away was a silly looking pale man in a ridiculous blue hat.  “YOU’VE LOST ME MY SHOT AT THE TRIUMPH FORKS THAT’S WHAT!”  He started swimming at them full speed, which was surprisingly fast for one so old.  Roxy casually unfurled the sail.  Aradia, ever thoughtful (though usually the thoughts she’s full of are not entirely grounded to the situation) rummaged around under the bench until she found a cork life-preserver and tossed it at Old Man Ho Ho as they sped away.

 

            Roughly an hour later, John felt something heavy in his shirt pocket.  He took it out, wondering what it might be, having forgotten nearly everything about their Ghost Ship adventure in all the excitement.  It was a chunk of gold, triangular in shape, broken and jagged on one side but shaped on the other two, as thick as two fingers.  John screamed.

  


* * *

[1] This is a very guttural ‘H’ sound, as in the name Chaim, and at the end it goes very quiet and high pitched.  Truly a sound to behold.  I wanted to link a video of this guy’s ‘dialogue’ but alas, there aren’t any. :(

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ This is what the refrance.](http://www.mspaintadventures.com/storyfiles/hs2/05433.gif) This is the first chapter to break the theme naming scheme and fuck it most of you already know the theme is the central character of the chapter’s Legend of Zelda Aspect. Legend of Zelda obviously doesn’t have aspects but I’m adopting the term from Homestuck for ease of reference; the only chapter title that wasn’t wind-based was earth based and it was the one that introduced Aradia. Roxy will have one too in due time, and so will others.  
>  Fuck this chapter. I mean it’s good but goddammit fuck my need to randomly have the ghosts speak Old English, and I mean right proper Old English not Shakespearean which is Early Modern and laughably easy to write. [A rational mind](http://archiveofourown.org/users/polyfandrous/pseuds/polyfandrous) might realize that Anglo-Saxon record keeping is spotty at best and that the language is largely incomplete but I am an artiste and therefore a fuckass who enjoys running around the internet looking up grammar that doesn’t exist and translators that only work one day at a time. Again, a rational mind might recommend using Welsh but I was already two sentences of stupidly hard work into this ‘masterpiece’ by the time that idea came up, and to make it worse, my grammar is atrocious. If any of you can be arsed to translate this back into Modern English (I tried to make it as clear as possible through context what was actually being said), know that this is actually a pidgin language constructed from Old English, German, and Greek, because fuck you. tumut  
> Another thing that was difficult was trying to find sounds to link from Wind Waker (for the Ao3 version with links, of course). There are half a million Let’s Plays on YouTube, but no, like, ten second videos of Ho Ho Ho Hoing it up or Wizzrobes doing their freaky scream. Alas!  
> The muppet song is a bit out of place I know but it's apt, the music rises in the right places in line with the text, and otherwise I would have had the exact same song from Pirates as when John fights the Stalfos. Speaking of which, the jumping Stalfos are from A Link to the Past and the spark-rackets are from Skyward Sword. The reference to the wizzrobe's eyes being metallic is from the Mayan book Popul Vuh in reference to the parrot god 7 Macaw, who had metal eyes and beak. See, reading literature ruins you as a person.  
> I know that the Ghost Ship is a full dungeon in Phantom Hourglass, a game I have not played :P All the same it should totally have been one in WW. A bit of sequence breaking this chapter, we are still in sight of the rails people!  
> Oh yeah fans of this story watch this space, a neat surprise is coming up soon and if you like this story I don’t want you to miss it. Just click refresh all the time between now and Christmas.  
> Edit: [Okay, this is it, this is the surprise.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1098154)


	13. Winding Paths and Leaves in the Breeze

            After a round of gentle slapping from the girls John was at last able to calm down and look at the artifact again.  A simple piece of gold shaped like a broken triangle that didn’t seem nearly as impressive now as it had the night before.  Perhaps it was a bit sparklier than it should have been after however long it had spent in that dim, dank hold, and was maybe warmer to the touch than gold should be, though that might just have been John’s own hands warming the thing up.

            “Jaspers,” he said, holding the thing up to the figurehead.  “What is this?”

            Jaspers turned around on his sinuous neck and examined it curiously, first with one amber colored eye and then the other, prodding it with his whisker-tendrils, giving it a little sniff.  John was a little disconcerted seeing the boat’s wooden body moving up close, mimicking flesh perfectly.  “The Triforce of Courage,” Jaspers said offhandedly after a brief lick with his splintery tongue.

            Roxy gasped in awed surprise while John squinted and nodded as if he had understood.  Jaspers laughed under his breath, though there was as always no malice in it.  “When the Knight of Time was called away on another adventure, he left Hyrule.  He was separated from the Aspects that made him a hero, and his part of the Triforce split into eight pieces.”

            “And this is one of them?” Roxy asked excitedly, leaning over to look at it while Aradia patiently waited her turn.  Jaspers nodded in the affirmative.  Roxy let out a stream of excited expletives, wrestled it out of John’s hand and started playing with it.  She held it up to the light and set it on the back of her hand as if expecting it to do something.

            Aradia cleared her throat loudly.  “John’s too insecure to ask what the Triforce is so I’m going to ask for him so he can save face!”  She stepped forward, hands clasped smartly behind her back like a student about to recite.  “What _is_ the Triforce?”

            “Oh!” Jaspers seemed surprised.  “I forgot that everyone on the Great Sea had forgotten!”  The boat tilted its cat-like head for a moment, eyes glazing over, deep in thought.  “It's an untapped crucible of creative potential left over from the raising of this world from the primordial chaos!” He announced, and kicked his rudder into gear.

            John sighed as he unfurled the sail.  “Another damn thing Dave needs to collect, right?”

            “Yup!” Jaspers shouted, enjoying the ocean spray.  “He’ll be so happy we got this one out of the way though.”

 

            Rats hissed and water dripped as Dave trudged through the ancient sewer.  It was so old that it was clean; the eerie grey water splashing around his mid-calf was sea water.  His cape trailed in the water behind like the mantle of a ray in flight.

            The sewer complex was much, much larger than the old house needed; the little island he’d purchased (with rupees embezzled from the Windfall Stock Exchange) may well have once been a city.  Up ahead, the cramped tunnel of Hylian whitestone opened up into a larger chamber made of plain granite with a square well-like structure in the center.  The air was thick and pale in the light of his fire.  Dave bit his lip; white fog, he’d learned, was a sign of haunting.  He looked down the well and saw that the very bottom was bone-dry.

            He hopped up onto the lip of the structure and drew his sword; it had an ugly scar in the center where he’d had it re-forged, though the edges gleamed red from an expert tempering by a Goron smithy as if slicing the light into its constituent parts like a prism.  With one last look, he jumped right in.  With a slight jerking sensation his descent slowed to survivable speeds as the Roc feathers he’d had sewn into the cape activated. The two huge quills, blue-tipped white, spread their pinions out from beneath the cape, granting him the illusion of wings.  Shame he’d had to kill the poor animal; it had been beautiful.

            About halfway down, the slippery-wet stone walls were replaced by mud-brick decorated with bits of shell, then rich black soil, reddish clay, and finally dank brown earth as he touched down.  The room was square and slightly larger than his own room back on Outset, empty except for a few coffins lined up vertically against the walls and a clay pot filled with rupees in the center.  He ignored the chump-change, being richer than a Chosenni merchant, in favor of a little tunnel in the wall right next to one of the coffins, just big enough for him to crawl through.  Dave sighed.  He had spent three days mapping this bastard maze and he swore it was going to turn him claustrophobic. 

            He approached cautiously, looking at the hole as if it would turn into a mouth and try to bite him.  Fuck the Temple of Illusion, he thought.  Biggest waste of his time ever invented, even compared to the Palace of Tumescent Puppets. 

            [The lid of the nearest coffin fell open.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Eb4ONZw01Y)

            The thing inside looked as if it had once been human but he couldn’t be sure.  The head was cylindrical and the ears horribly distended, though the surprisingly crisp white tattoos indicated a life of body modification.  However, the entire thing was slate blue.  Its chest and waist were emaciated, just leathery blue flesh over bone, but its thighs and calves had a fleshy plumpness; perhaps the fluids of its body had drained downwards as it mummified, ruining the proportions.  Its hollow eye-sockets flickered red, like a just-struck match.  It opened its lipless mouth and a hideous scream filled the air, augmented with dark magic to freeze its target in place with fear—

            Dave threw his lantern at it, turning the dehydrated monster into a merry pyre.  He’d fought similar creatures in the northern islands and knew what was what.  Three other coffin lids thumped to the ground, each raising a little puff of eerie dust.  Dave sighed, then sprang across the room with inhuman speed granted by his Pegasus Boots.  John probably never had to deal with this, he thought as he slammed feet-first into the first monster’s chest. As it toppled, he ran the ReDead through the mouth, prematurely ending its scream.  John and Jade were probably back on Outset, worrying about him and shit.  They’d be so surprised when he came back some day as a fully realized Hero. He twisted the blade and kicked off before the ReDead even hit the floor.  His bro would never let him live it down.

            With a two-handed swing he hacked through the spinal cord of the next monster.  Its legs fell limp but the upper body shrieked in rage and leapt up to him, ready to grab with its spindly blue arms.  Although the fear managed to paralyze his body, Dave still managed to hold his sword so that it impaled itself on the blade, and the ReDead’s too-big teeth snapped at nothing until he regained control.  He touched the medallion in his pocket.  Magic did not come easy to him despite how often he’d practiced, and he needed little trinkets like this to make it easier.  He gathered up power like drawing water from a well, and coldness seeped up into his body; little snowflakes glowing blue danced along the edge of his blade.  He then executed a perfect spinning slash and the monster fell in three more, frost-coated pieces.  He’d wanted to learn fire, but the Ether Medallion was the best he’d been able to come up with.

            Thanks in large part to his Boots he was able to dodge the next blow as the third monster attacked.  This one was different.  It had a muscular build and no skin at all, but was covered in extra bones like a set of armor, with bony growths on its head in the vague shape of a helmet.  A piece of metal had been riveted over its mouth, but in its clawed hands the monster held a huge sword, red with rust but more than heavy enough to split Dave in half if he let it.

            He was not about to let it.  With his Roc cape Dave leapt over the swordstroke and brought his blade down, drawing even more power from the medallion.  His sword cut clear through, striking the ground under the creature, releasing a spray of chilled air that left frost on the floor.  The strange undead thing fell to its knees and collapsed.  Dave sheathed his sword and exhaled deeply.  Behind him the first ReDead smoldered quietly.  “I wasted my lantern,” he thought.

 

            Hours later, he crawled out of the mud underneath the little tropical cabana into a tropical rainfall.  The warm shower put out the burning mummified limb he’d been using as a torch and he threw the wretched thing into the pool in disgust.  The painting of a butler stared down at him disapprovingly from the door as he passed the house.  Dave flipped it off.  There was a little gravel path lined with lampposts that wound down to the beach.  Dave cut straight down rather than admiring the big orange flowers planted at the bends.

            Down at the shore (a beach of black volcanic sand), a pedal-powered boat and two trolls in codpieces waited for him.  “Hey motherfucker,” Gamzee drawled.  “You find yourself that little fossilized piece of miracle you had your peepers on?”

            Dave approached slowly, letting the torrential rain clean him off.  “Nope,” he said coolly, then taking a second to spit out the lukewarm water that had made its way into his mouth.  It was really coming down.  “All that and I just got a dusty little flute.” The gaslamps flickered on by magic as the hour changed; the rainclouds were too dark to tell the hour by sunlight.  Dave had yet to remove his sunglasses.

 

            “Is today the day you stab me through the heart, pitch me overboard and take over the ship?” asked Rose as Vriska slunk into her cabin, cutlass in hand.  She was applying her war-paint.

            The troll grinned.  “Nope.  I was gonna do that last night but the crew was feeling especially loyal to you.  Jack threatened to peel off my nails and eat them.”

            Rose arched an eyebrow.  “Out of loyalty?” she asked with a deadpan expression.  The black lipstick was rolled on with a practiced hand.

            “Noooooooo,” Vriska said with a roll of her eye.  “That was just _before_ I revealed my plan! Turns out, he wants to be captain too.”

            Rose groaned.  “You should all just leave my employ and start your own crews.”

            Vriska smirked.  “But there’ll never be another ship like _the Grimdark_.”  She kissed the doorframe for emphasis.  “Taking this ship would be worth half a reputation!”

            “What is it you want?” Rose said, short of patience.

            “Did you ever hear anything about the island boy?” she asked innocently.  “I liked him.  I was gonna ask him to join the crew if he came back alive.”

            Rose tapped her chin.  She had tried to contact him with her orb all that night, but it appeared to have been damaged.  All she could pick up were small hints of things over the next few weeks, an explosion of activity in the past few days.  There had been a confrontation with the lord of the fortress, open water for longer than he should have been able to survive, then fire and monsters.  A god of the old world, vanquished.

            And girls.  Two or three _very_ pretty girls their age getting fairly touchy feely, and John may or may not have had a post-victory snog with a ram-horned troll.  Rose did _not_ like her; it shows poor breeding and desperation to kiss a boy on a battlefield, and _right_ after slaying the monster too.  He deserved better.

            Regardless, it had been enough to justify a letter informing dear old Nana that her grandchild was still alive, though the mission had been a failure.  “He’s still alive,” said Rose.  “He appears to be collecting treasure himself as part of some sort of test.  There are very dark things going on, First Mate.  The world might be in peril.”

            Vriska affected apathy.  “Do we really care about the world?”

            “It _is_ where I keep my things,” Rose responded.

            Vriska nodded and turned to take her leave, but stopped herself.  “Oh, there is one more thing Captain!”

            Rose frowned.  This was probably not good.  Then there was a loud _*bang!*_ and the ship rocked almost all the way onto its side.  “We’re being attacked by a Sosarian destroyer,” Vriska added.  “The crew _will_ be informed that you were too busy talking about boys to bother with this assault.”

            Rose aimed a needlewand at the troll girl and fired off a blast of purple-black energy, but she was already gone and working on her current nefarious scheme.

            _The Grimdark_ shook again, groaning under the latest blow.  Rose clenched her teeth and made her dignified way up the stairs to the immanent battle, ignoring the smoldering black smudge on the wall, curled and twisted like a horrorterror.

 

            The islands of the Forest Haven materialized out of the morning mists like ambushing phantoms.  At least, John _thought_ they were islands.  As they approached, the truth became clear.  The Forest Haven _was_ in fact a forest.

            Or at least it used to be.  A half dozen or so tree trunks the size of islands rose from the sea like somber giants.  Most were of a silvery pale wood mottled dark green, a kind that John had seen for sale at Windfall for an extravagant price.  To the left, one massive trunk had been riddled with walkways and openings, and carapacians could be seen bustling about near the upper branches.  The branches however, were short and cracked, and any sort of greenery was from smaller plants that grew from clefts in the bark.

            To the right, it was a different story.  The next largest island, almost equal in size, was a dark brown, almost black, and was being overgrown by huge choking vines, as green as the ocean depths with thorns bigger than a man, and they seemed to be moving, very, _very_ slowly, but moving even still.  There was only one opening John could see, a tiny chink way high up, farther than any could climb.  Strange animals flew near the upper reaches; they seemed to hover in place and move by spinning and spiraling.  The two wooden giants seemed to glare at each other over the mile-long stretch of ocean between them, the smaller tree-islands looking up like frightened children watching their parents argue.  “That’s the Forbidden Woods,” Jaspers said cheerfully.

            “Obviously,” John muttered.

 

            Within the hour, they had Jaspers moored to the island’s sole mailbox and set foot on land.  There was a series of shallow terraces thick with moss and some scraggly grass, the lowest of which was only a few inches about sea level.  The topmost one turned into a path that lazily zigzagged up the trunk to an opening like an arched doorway.   Unlike a doorway, a little stream of pure crystalline water trickled from the opening, turning into a picturesque waterfall that cascaded to the right of the winding path.  Forest Haven was not a bustling port on the magnitude of Windfall, with only a few small, clinker-built boats lashed together from strips of pale bark moored at one island or another.  The exception was one slightly smaller boat that made John’s eyes widen on seeing it.  “Beedle!” He called out.

            The hull of the barge was painted a cheerful teal, with white enamel fittings decorated in teal patterns.  The sole cabin was painted with a huge advertisement that declared in bright red characters the massive amount of money saving that would go on inside this ship, should you choose to enter.  It also depicted a dusky, round faced man with a long, red nose and tiny black eyes, whose brown hair had been shorn into shape resembling a helmet, or a coconut.  Brass speaking tubes protruded from the top, pointing in all four directions and playing exciting music.  “What are you doing here Beedle?” John shouted, trying to wave the merchant down.

            Aradia joined in.  “Yay, Beedle!” she declared.  “He owes me some rupees, I’ll be right back!” and with that she kicked off and glided over to the shop-ship.

            “John stop,” Roxy said, grabbing his arm.  “There are lots of Beedles!”  He looked at her, stunned by the revelation.

            “But that’s the same ship!” He sputtered.  “It has the exact same face with the exact same awkward bowlcut!”

            “It’s true John,” Roxy insisted.  “There’s one almost everywhere these days!  I was surprised too the first time I left home but the plurality of Beedles is just a reality of life.”

            Aradia came back, looking slightly disappointed.  “He’s not the same guy,” she said.  “It’s too bad, the other one gave me a way better price for my artifacts.  I ended up trading one of those joy pendants we collected for a hyoi.”  Here her face lit up like a flower blooming towards the sun and produced a huge yellow pear.  It had brown depressions on its surface that made it look like a ghost groaning in agony.  “Isn’t he adorable?” she asked, rubbing it on her cheek.

            Both John and Roxy blinked at her until she stopped.  “Fine I’ll put him away,” she said, tangling the unsettling fruit in her hair so that its ghastly face gazed eyeless to her left.

            Roxy cringed.  “What’s that creepy thing _do_ anyway?”

            “Nothing!” Aradia beamed.  “He’s just a cute accessory.”  And with that she fluttered to the topmost terrace and skipped off up the path.  Then a huge mouth on a spindly neck burst from the bushes like a jack leaping from its box and clamped her in its jaws.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN! Whoa we’re back with this fic finally it’s been too long etc. I may or may not be branching out with something new…again, soon. Sorry.  
> Oh Dave you are such a card. The enemies he fights are Wind Waker ReDeads and a Gibdos knight from TP. I implied that he fought OoC style ReDeads in something called the Temple of Illusion. I mentioned once that those look like Flesh Atronachs from _Elder Scrolls,_ and so it became my headcanon that WW ReDeads are sort of traditional zombies but OoC ones are fleshy golems. He has, in fact, been having adventures of his own. The music I used was not only chosen for its general epicness but because there is a character in Madoka Magica who is essentially fem!Dave.  
>  Coldman9 _still_ probably doesn’t know what I meant by me fooling everyone, but at least he inspired me to write this chapter, rather than you know, letting the story advance any more :P  
>  To be entirely honest, if it seems that I may have been padding out the time between the first two real dungeons, (Dragonroost Cavern and Forbidden Woods) it’s because I have been. Of course, all the reasons I gave are still valid, such as trying to extend the game to a more appropriate length so as to avoid the third act being repetitive, but in actual fact I just had a lot of trouble planning out the forest arc. Still, I think I finally got it, and we’ll be getting to that hopefully more quickly than the last update.  
> …John has been screaming for like, four months.


	14. The Hiss of Leaves

            John and Roxy ran as quickly as they could, thinking only to save Aradia’s life.  John however, tripped and fell flat on his face within the first three steps, underestimating the height of the next terrace.  Roxy clicked her tongue as she ran.  “We’ll train that out of you Johnny, don’t worry!” she said.  With a jump, she was on Aradia’s level and face to face with the creature, if it could be said to have a face.

            It was a big flower or some kind of pod that opened up like a mouth, deep purple where it met the stem fading to green at the edges, where wicked looking but flexible spines imitated teeth.  A long, yellow, flexible tongue like some kind of obscene banana dripped purple slime onto the moss as it _tasted_ Aradia, searching up and down her body; her face was contorted with horror.  “Eew,” Roxy muttered, drawing her last knife.  “You deserve to die so much you creepy hentai plant thing—”

            Aradia burst into flame and incinerated the flowery monster, its leaves and petals withering immediately.  Roxy stared, nonplussed.  “What?” Aradia asked, brushing some ash off the front of her shirt.  “You taught us all magic.”  She fluttered her wings and the rest of the ashes puffed away from her as a little cloud.  “Oh hey though,” she added, looking a little embarrassed.

            Roxy arched an eyebrow.  “What is it?”

            Aradia leaned in and whispered, “Am I ruined for marriage now?”

            John at just that moment arrived, swinging his hammer and bellowing like a madman.  The girls laughed at him.

 

            The walk up the path was largely uneventful, although the plant creatures, Boko Babas according to the pictobox, hissed at them from the tall grass, shivering the foliage around them.  The group reached the archway and the shallow waters of the stream eddied around their ankles, cool and herbal smelling, tinted just slightly green.  They stepped inside into darkness.

            The darkness was short-lived; the hollow tree was filled with dim teal light, the harsher shades of the spectrum blocked out by the dense canopy of trees above. The Forest Haven was in fact a forest. 

            The air inside the trunk seemed effervescent, filled as it was with tiny orbs of rainbow colors fluttering around here and there.  John thought they might be fairies until one landed on his nose and he realized it was a firefly.  The Carapacian city was built right into the wood of the trunk and melded in with the natural landscape so well that at first the children thought it was uninhabited.  The stream began as a vaguely circular pool with an island in its center; all around were enormous, cabbage-shaped flowers whose slate blue petals brightened to crimson-violet at the tips. They grew on from surprisingly thin stalks that could grow taller than the surrounding trees.

            Taller that is, except for one.  The island-within-an-island was taken up entirely by an enormous tree of stripy, pale wood, thicker around than a house and so tall its topmost branches almost broke the rim of the hollow trunk.  Water welled up from its massive roots, the source of the stream.  Stranger than its height however, was the tree’s face.  Someone had carved a huge sculpture of a Carapacian man, massive in size and built like a warrior despite his round belly, protruding just over the roots of the tree. The scultped giant had no legs, giving it the effect of slowly bursting through the bark.  Instead of a smooth bald head like John had seen on Carapacians, the artist had left a circle of gnarled, twisted branches at its top, like a crown.  Two branches had been reshaped into arms, though here the artist’s skill had either failed or become more post-modern, as the fingers split and twisted into branches again.  The right hand was bare, but the left grew around and into a massive pole like a giant's scepter, topped with a pearl as big as a man’s head, glowing lime green.  There were three flaws, much darker green, inside the pearl; it was turned so that, facing the tree-man head on, they resembled three concentric crescents, or a very stylized whirlwind.  It was the symbol of Farore.

            The tree opened its mouth and groaned in agony, bark and wood moving and stretching exactly like flesh, arms flailing and thrashing, shaking itself all the way to its upper branches.  John remembered his strategy not to be surprised at things anymore.  “This is completely normal,” he insisted.  He took a powerful stride forward, unslinging his shield and hammer, a determined look on his face.  “Guardian of Farore’s Pearl,” he declared in a loud voice, “We’ve come here for the holy artifact.  If there’s anything we can do to earn the right to it, it shall be done!” 

            The tree continued groaning.  Two slits opened up in its face, showing little round eyes made of amber glowing with liquid light.  Its mouth opened wide and bellowed something in a language John didn’t understand.

 

            [](http://imgur.com/o6tR7rG)

 

            His voice echoed through the hollow trunk.  “I’m sorry _what_?” John asked after a few mintues, drawing a blank.

            “He asked for help!” Roxy declared, drawing a knife in one hand and her rod in the other. 

           

           [](http://imgur.com/F5Hjlis)

           

Roxy gasped.  “Holy crap that’s gross! Don't worry wooden dude!” No sooner had she said this than a swarm of chuchus, both red and lime green, bored their way out of cracks in the tree’s bark; it roared in agony once gain, shaking the forest all around, making the leaves and grasses hiss like serpents. The things dropped to the floor.  “I didn’t know they could do that,” John said matter-of-factly, his inner fear and disgust betrayed only by the sad drooping of his ears.  The slimy monsters floated on the surface of the water like a glob of mucus in water, though their movements indicated a sort of rudimentary intelligence.  They slowly congealed to one point in front of the stunned adventurers.

 

            [](http://imgur.com/23l3a8V)

“Hold your horses tree guy, we’ve fought worse!” Roxy declared, rod flaring pink with her disapproval.  “And what do you mean by ‘[titan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqjyBxv6O8U&feature=kp)’? It’s just a big pile of—”

            The blob extended upward, assuming a vaguely humanoid appearance, becoming a figure that towered almost as high as the tree man’s face.  The colors of slime mingled and muddied into a deep, dirty purple.  Its arms were huge trunk-like objects with three simple, dripping digits; its feet were just columns like an elephant’s, somehow still buoyant enough to float on the water’s surface.  Instead of a head, three dozen pairs of bloodshot eyes floated to the forefront of its bubble-shaped chest.  A cluster of purplish-grey matter floated to the back.  Roxy snapped her fingers.

            “Attack pattern delta!” Aradia shouted, launching herself up into the air with a leap.  She gave a single, powerful flap of her wings for distance, and then snapped her whip at a tree branch, swinging towards the monster.

            Roxy, determined look on her face, took off running for the left, firing a stream of magic at the monster that severed its arm.  John, deciding to just roll with it, ran off to the right, taking a running leap at the monster’s knee.  His hammer met little resistance and passed right through, severing the limb at the knee.  He smiled triumphantly as it came toppling down.  He watched it crash and break on the water’s surface into a dozen different mucus-y blobs.

            “Good job!” Aradia declared.  He looked up.  She was holding on to her whip with one hand and awkwardly dangling from the tree branch.  She giggled.  “I forgot I only have one weapon, so I just…hung out for a bit!”  John laughed.  Roxy groaned.  The monster reformed itself and let out a wet, sticky roar, splattering the Hylian children with droplets of purplish spittle.  It reached up and grabbed Aradia with a gelatinous hand.  She yelped, more out of surprise and disgust than pain or fear before being subsumed by the muck.

            “Don’t worry Aradia!” John shouted, shaking his fist.  “We’ll have you out in a jiffy!”

            “Or we’ll avenge you!” Roxy called.  “Whichever comes first!”  And with that she let out a blast of pink light from her rod, slicing the monster horizontally in half.  The top immediately fell down on top of the bottom and reconnected.  It began to take lumbering steps toward them, gurgling bubbles of its own flesh like a horrendous baby composed entirely of slime, as its severed arm regrew itself as if being maimed had been a temporary inconvenience.  Roxy growled and pulled out the pictobox.  “John, you distract it while I try to find its weakness!”

            John nodded and splashed off to meet the creature.  He threw his shield down into the water, deciding it would only slow him down in this battle, and pushed his tiny reserve of magic into his hammerhead.  He found himself propelled, screaming, as the magic burst from the weapon like a jet engine, and he struck the monster head on.

            There was slight resistance, uncomfortable wriggling, the scent of burning hair and slime, then something heavy clamped onto him and suddenly he was free, coming out of the monster’s backside along with a good chunk of goo and a very disheveled looking Aradia.  They hit the water with a loud splash and John bruised his shins on the wooden floor of the pool.  Aradia was unmoving and still; dissolved slime leached from her soiled hair and clothes like blood from a wound, and her lips dribbled with purple.  John muttered a swear and started shaking her.  Her heart was still beating, but it was faint, and no breath left her nostrils.

 

            [](http://imgur.com/3jmahfz)

 

            Roxy’s voice rang out, the Forest Haven ringing like a wooden bell, and a huge flare of pink light tore through the monster’s upper body.  Purplish viscera rained down on John and Aradia; it was wrinkly and squishy and John realized it might be brain matter.  The monster’s remains began to melt harmlessly into the stream, and flow out into the sea. 

            Roxy shambled over, visibly exhausted.  “Oh crap,” she muttered.  She wobbled over to Aradia’s side and bent over her, a sour expression on her face. 

            “She’s still alive,” John said with mounting concern.

            “I need to give her…” Roxy trembled from head to toe in a single little wave and was then still; “ _The kiss of life!”_

            “What’s that?” John asked as Roxy held her nose and puckered her lips.  For the next minute, he watched her try and fail to press her lips to Aradia’s as the troll girl’s face grew deeper and deeper burgundy with asphyxiation.  John sighed and shoved Roy out of the way.  Then he uttered a quick prayer to Nayru and, blushing fiercely, exhaled into Aradia’s mouth.  There was a faint tingling from his lungs, up his throat, into his mouth and outward. 

            It didn’t end there; somehow he could still feel the sensation as it spread into Aradia’s body through her lungs, cleaning and rejuvenating her blood.  Then the girl started coughing and spat a gobbet of purple ick into his mouth and John almost vomited.  He was saved from that fate when she delivered a vicious uppercut to his nose.  _"I don’t like you like that get it through your head!”_ she shouted.  “Not even anywhere near that quadrant!” she huffed, crossing her arms.  “Or _any_ quadrant because I’m too young for those,” she added, playing with a strand of her woolly hair.  Her face paled just slightly.

           

            “ **Thank you small ones,”** the voice was rich, booming, and deep as the foundations of the earth.  The children looked up.  The tree-man had spoken.  **“I am the Deku of this generation, king of Forest Haven.”**

The giant inclined his head towards John.“Fucking called it,” John whispered under his breath. 

            **“I heard you ask a boon, little one,”** he went on.  The Deku King lowered his scepter and John looked into the pearl. Close enough to touch.  The huge creature gestured at the girls.  **“Leave us,”** he said, **“this is for his ears only.”**   Roxy looked like she was about to protest, but then she jerked as if about to fall over and dry heaved once.  Aradia, looking little better, held onto her.

            The king’s gaze softened.  **“You have expended your magic, and you friend nearly suffocated.”** A huge lotus bloomed on the water as if from nothing, its petals soft and inviting.  **“Rest.  The hero will inform you of what we have spoken.”**

Aradia nodded.  “Good luck John,” she said with a half-hearted wave.

            “Don’t get us into anymore trouble eh?” Roxy added, flashing all her teeth.

They settled down on the flower, and the petals closed over them gently.  **“They shall be rejuvenated shortly,”** the king mumbled, noting John’s wide-eyed look of discomfort.  **“The Pearl,”** the king began, **“is a sacred relic. The punishment for a foreigner asking such a thing of me would normally be to be flayed alive and have your skin nailed to the roots of the island as a warning to others,”** he said sternly.

            John’s face fell, and he felt himself slowly adjusting the grip on his hammer— **“but these are not normal times,”** the Deku King said with a heavy sigh that rippled across the pool and down the stream all the way out into the sea, **“Caliborn has returned and means to kill the Speaker of the Vast Croak.  The end of all things is upon us.  The hero must have the Pearls, lest all of time be shattered.  And so, I shall give my Pearl to him.”** The Deku King, his woody flesh groaning with age and heavy weight, leaned back against the trunk, holding the scepter like a cane.  **“Tonight, at the end of our festival, I will grant you Farore’s Pearl, O hero.  It has been entrusted to our kind since Farore first breathed life into her game pieces countless eons ago; bear it—”**

John cleared his throat.  “Um, sir,” he added a hasty kneel, remembering he was in the presence of royalty.  “I just _know_ it will cause problems later if I don’t say it now but _neither of us_ is the hero.  He’s off doing other heroic stuff.  It’s just that Jaspers told us that we needed to—”

            **“Then you are _not_ the Knight of Time?” ** the Deku king boomed, leaning in to glare appraisingly.  His amber eyes burned like tiny suns.

            John gasped in spite of himself and took a step back.  There was fighting monsters and gods, and then there was staring authority in the face, and while a sufficiently brave child can do one, it takes a true hero-child to do the other.  “No sir,” he squeaked, “none of us is, like I said.”

            The king’s gaze softened, and he leaned back.  **“I will give you the Pearl,”** he said after a moment’s consideration.  **“I owe you a great debt, and I trust in and value honesty.  If I give you this Pearl, I know that, somehow, it will be used as it was meant to be.”**   The king reached up into his branches and pulled down a massive horn made from the shell of some sea-monster and blew into it.  It sounded loud and brazen, almost like Pyralspite’s musical roars, and the air shook.  **“Tonight the Carapacians gather from all over the sea,”** he declared.  **“They hid in fear of the monsters plaguing my flesh, but now, our festival will continue uninterrupted!”**

            The hard-shelled people sprang from hidden doorways all over Forest Haven, like beetles emerging from a dead log.  They clambered and crawled down the steep wooden walls, along vines and down carven steps.  From the highest reaches, Carapacians hovered down, buzzing like drones, a pair of leafy wings or rotors vibrating so quickly they were just verdant discs.

            As they approached, silent and nervous, John saw that all of them had plants growing from their shells, the chitin stretching and gradually morphing into wood and leaves, distorting their joints and edges so their pale, nearly featureless faces looked like masks.  The few he’d met in his life were simple, doll-like people, almost like blank slates, or mannequins.  He noticed however, that each wore a simple golden ring set with a tiny green pearl on their left hand.  After a minute of buzzing and clicking steps, a hundred of the creatures stood arrayed around their king in a circle, the tiny island filled almost to capacity by them.

            **“In antiquity,”** the king intoned, **“the power to change form was restricted to the Carapatian monarchs.  Then the cataclysm came, and for the survival of our race, it was granted to every member.  In this unbalanced world, our forms merge those of plant and insect, a union of land, sky and ocean within each individual.”**   He paused and cleared his throat.  The whole little island rumbled, and the leaves above shook and hissed. **“The festival begins at sundown,”** the Deku King boomed.  He stretched his free hand far over John's head like a benediction abd continued. **“When the festivities have ended, I will grant this young human the sacred—”**

A nasally scream of nearly infectious panic ripped across the air.  _“Miss Paint has fallen into the Forbidden Woods!”_ A carapacian who was long in the trunk yet had stubby limbs made his laborious, graceless way across the water as quickly as possible, stumbling almost every other step.  His splashing disturbed the floating lotus, making it rock arhythmically. _“Miss Paint!”_ The chitinous ‘mask’ on his face was shaped roughly like a butterfly, and his wooden growths had a bit more mottled green than silver-grey.  He shambled onto the island, accidentally pulling one carapacian into the water as his stubby legs fought the slight slope, and shoving another one after him as he lunged forward.  _“The Forbidden Woods!”_ He shouted into any face that turned to look at him.  "Miss Paint!" The distended little man shoved passed John and the kids, bellowing into the Deku King’s face; _“MISS PAINT! THE FORBIDDEN WOODS!”_

He turned around and finally saw what a spectacle he had made of himself.  “I…” he said, making a feeble, conciliatory gesture, “I thought you ought to know.”

And with that, he collapsed from exhaustion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do recall that Roxy speaks the old tongue, and yeah, she totally still has the rod, why wouldn’t she?  
> The Old tongue used here, by the way, was a font I downloaded from a Zelda fansite. I did not want to go through the effort of figuring out how to html it though. While it’s an authentic font, the actual Anceint tongue is a complex construction of the universe, and is in fact a syllabary comprised of Japanese sounds, so if you tried to translate it back into English it would be pure nonsense. Other forms of Hylian have been alphabets and logographs.  
> Alright y’all, those of you who know me personally know that I can meet a deadline if I force myself to, so *cracks knuckles, cracks neck, cracks back* I am going to finish this beautiful hulk of a story. Now, with _Thief of Prospit,_ I had almost half of it done and I gave myself a whole month to do the rest of it, amounting to 60,000 words. What most of you don’t know is the very next month I tightened my author pants and cranked out a whole novel of 53,000 words for NaNoWriMo. However, this fic is approaching 60,000 words and we’re still far from finished, not even at the second proper dungeon (I don’t count the Forsaken Fortress because you come back later), so I’m going to give myself a lot more time. I haven’t been writing as much lately, and while I could conceivably have done it in a month, with great effort, this time _last_ year, I certainly can’t finish it in month _this_ year. So instead, I’m giving myself until the one year anniversary of this fic’s publication, July 1st. Which is…not _that_ far off…  
>  Credit to Lordlyhour for giving me an idea of how to handle the carapacians-as-Koroks by bringing up the magic rings in the _Oracle_ games. Seems obvious now, or it would if I had played them…  
>  And yes that was a Harry Potter reference, you are very smart. There aren’t that many named, white carapacians in Homestuck canon, so that guy is just Linder from _Wind Waker,_ and any carapacians with speaking roles will likely be race-lifted Koroks.


	15. True Flight

            In times of crisis, the Breath Waker has acted in the hero’s stead, when the hero of the generation had not yet emerged. 

            These words of the Deku King’s echoed in John’s head as he looked out over the edge.  They were standing on one of the highest branches of Forest Haven; it protruded some thirty feet out from the island, hundreds of feet over the water.  From so high the sea did not look nearly as calm as it did when they sailed across it.  Everything all around was a pale cobalt blue except for a line of pink-gold on the horizon, and there were no shadows anywhere.  The morning star was rising over the sea; Din had been victorious over the armies of Demise, his grandmother once said.  The wind howled around his ears, like a puppy demanding attention.  He stuck out his hand, and stroked it, feeling it dance over and around his fingers like a moth’s feathery feelers.  The moss under his feet was thick and soft as a fine carpet; tiny beetles crawled around in his footprints before the moss sprang back up to conceal them.  The air was cold, salty, and a little herbal.

            Behind him, Aradia hugged her wings close to her body, shivering in the cold.  Roxy tried to keep a stoic expression on her face, but the fact that she was trying for stoicism at all indicated she was highly uncomfortable, even more than the way her ears were drooping.  “I don’t understand how you can like heights,” she said.  “Rae-Rae I understand, she can _fly_ , but you are a mere human and should think that this is just awful like me.”

            John smiled.  “I have to be good at something.”

            “Don’t say that,” Aradia interjected.  “You’re pretty good at a lot of things.  Like killing Poes!  That’s—”

            “Hey Rae-Rae,” said Roxy, sidling up to her, throwing an arm around her shoulder.  “When _is_ the wedding?”

            “What’s a wedding?” She asked, furrowing her brow.  Roxy visibly deflated.

            John sighed and pulled out the Breath Waker, ignoring them.  The wind seemed excited now; the puppy had seen its owner brandishing its favorite toy.  He conducted, the breeze sang, and then it flew, west across the massive stumps that made up the island chain, howling as it slammed against the pitted bark and writhing vines of the Forbidden Woods.  Behind him, Roxy gasped as the frigid wind cut right through her clothing.

            John smiled; he always felt… _energized_ when he conducted the winds.  More alive.  Still grinning, he summoned something from one of his cards.  A massive leaf, plucked from the Deku King’s crown.  It was as long as his body, somewhat teardrop shaped, with translucent lime-colored flesh and thick, cord-like veins branching irregularly from the stem.   Emerald sparks fizzles from its serrated edges, floating on the breeze like embers before fizzling out.  He gripped the stem with his right hand and held the narrow tip of the leaf in his left, wringing it slightly, trying not to wrinkle or damage it though he knew it was much stronger and more durable than leather.  There was only one way to enter _that_ tree.

            “Are you sure about this John?” Roxy asked, speaking too quickly to be understood at first.  “We could try…I dunno, climbing?”

            “Trust me!” said Aradia, hugging Roxy from behind and squeezing the breath out of her.  “You are going to _enjoy_ this even, I promise!”

            John snickered.  “You climbed down the walls of the Forsaken Fortress without any tools and you’re scared of this?”

            “I was trained for that!” Roxy shouted, or tried to shout; Aradia’s trollish strength made saying so many things in one breath very difficult.  “And I have my magic to cling to walls,” she wheezed, “and I was _trained_ and—”

            John blew a loud raspberry and jumped off the edge.  The leaf, being magical, immediately caught the stiff wind, filling like a sail.  There was no way to enter the Forbidden Woods by sea; instead they would raid it by air. 

            The leaf almost ripped itself free of his grasp and for a second he was afraid it would tear, but the leaf held together, sparking like a coal fire, leaving a trail of embers in its wake like the tail of a comet.  It wasn’t true flight, John could feel gravity bringing him down, and if he’d cared to look back he would have seen the branch he’d left already far above, but the wind was strong and fast, and he sped forward, exhilaration mounting with every second.  The air whipped his ears raw and left his cheeks numb, but it carried him at a ripping pace.  [Then, after a moment’s excitement, the sunrise broke through the water’s surface and color filled the world all at once like a drop of golden dye spilled into a cup of water.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J_bL2bjQ-k)  John couldn’t help it; he whooped out loud like the child he was.

            John was airborne for no more than three minutes, no less than two, by the time he made landfall.  John hit the ground hard and rolled to a stop.   The Forbidden Woods loomed up ahead; he’d landed on a tall, slender trunk of yellowish wood, two-thirds of the way to the menacing hulk.  A spindly and knobby Carapacian with a slightly befuddles look on his lotus-shaped face and a porkpie hat on his head stared at him, distracted from some charts in his hands.  “Hi,” John said.

            The man started.  “Oh, um, yes.  The updraft will start within a few minutes, then you’ll be able to fly the gap and enter the forest.”  The Carapacian cleared his throat.  “If, that is, you don’t mind, Breath Waker.”

            “Hey it’s my job apparently,” John said, just as the squawking began.  They looked up, both startled, and saw Roxy and Aradia being swarmed by a half-dozen crazed, keening gulls.  Aradia was weaving in and around them as best she could, but the feathery assholes were proving too nimble and persistent.  Enraged, they dive-bombed at her head while Roxy swore at them, neither girl able to fight off the flock.

            John readied the Breath Waker, feeling the wind stir around him once gain.  The Carapacian cleared his throat.  “Not the best idea,” he said, rummaging around in a pouch at his waist.  He pulled out a slingshot and a little bag.  “Can you use this?” he asked tentatively, as if shocked at his own audacity for asking.

            John smiled and motioned for the Carapacian to throw him the weapon.  He caught it; it was a heavy weapon made of dark ashwood with a handle wrapped in sinews.  Within a second he’d loaded the pocket with a little lead ball, drawn it back, and let loose.  John had often taken pot shots at gulls and crabs with his own, smaller slingshot.  It wouldn’t have been any use on this journey so he hadn’t thought to bring it.  It had, however, served as great practice.

            The ball whistled through the air and snapped several feathers off the nearest gull’s wing, sending it into a downward spiral.  Another smashed the second gull dull dead center of the chest, and the bird stopped cold in the air before falling.  A third foolhardy seagull squawked in his direction and took a dive for his head; John hit the bird straight on and it burst into a puff of feathers.  The remaining three flew off; whatever they’d thought to gain was clearly no longer worth it.  A few moments later, Aradia landed roughly on the treetop, dropping Roxy in a heap just a second before tumbling to the floor herself.

            Aradia rolled to her feet with a whoop, wiggling her wings experimentally.  “I’m okay!”  She reached up to touch her hair, searching with her fingertips through the curly mass, a slightly worried expression crossing her lips.  It was suddenly replaced with joy as she felt the woody stem of her hyoi and pulled it out.  She kissed its not-face exuberantly and set it back in her hair, hollow little eyes peeking out at the world.

            “That is seriously the creepiest accessory I have ever seen,” said Roxy as John helped her up.  She scowled at the fruit.  “When we get to a human town, with real stores and stuff, I need to take you _shopping._ ”  Aradia _*ooh*_ ed and John sighed inwardly, remembering his previous experience of shopping with Roxy.

            The gangly Carapacian cleared his throat.  “Excuse me, the updraft…”

            The three kids startled at that, each mentally scolding themselves for forgetting their job.  Then Roxy’s lip twisted into a half-smile.  “John wanna switch?”

            John blinked, confused.  “Huh?”

            She grabbed him by the shoulders and twirled him around to face Aradia.  “Yeah,” Roxy drawled, stretching out the word as if she were having a fantastic idea, “Now _I_ get the leaf and Aradia carries _you,_ ” she said, shoving him towards her.  She added with a whisper; “I know you like each other Johnny, I’m just trying to push things along.”

            “That is so untrue!” John shouted, sputtering as he rounded on Roxy, face pink from more than just the morning chill, “I _do not_ like Aradia!”

            Aradia gawked, crestfallen; even the hyoi looked slightly more gloomy.  Her lower lip started to quiver.  “You don’t like me?  When did this happen?  I’m sorry…”

            John sighed.

 

            There was a surge of vertical speed as they hit the updraft; John could feel the warm current all around him for a second or two, and then they were flung out into the cold morning air, flying towards the Forbidden Woods.  John’s ears throbbed when Aradia occasionally beat her wings, making tiny corrections to her trajectory.  He tried to ignore her firm grip around his chest and how close their bodies were, and instead think about...like…ice.

            “John you suck!” Roxy called, dangling from the leaf a little ways away.  She had her legs drawn up, as if trying to curl into the fetal position.  “You did this to me on purpose!  I swear to Din Nayru and Farore that I’m gonna kill you!”

            Up ahead, there was a small aperture nestled between two thick, thorny vines, just wide enough for two to walk through abreast.  It had been marked by torches for any excursions from the Forest Haven, magicked to never go out, settled on a narrow lip of stretched out bark.  Unusual creatures fluttered around near the entrance; round-bodied things surrounded by a whirling golden nimbus; they filled the air with an odd flapping drone.  Blue lights on their sides blinked out as the day continued to brighten.  They drew nearer as the children approached, but left them alone as they landed and stepped into the tree’s innards.

 

            The inside of the Forbidden Woods was dark, lit by an eerie, dark green light.  There were no shadows here, and the distance was obscured by mist or steam.  The air was cool yet humid, and felt stagnant despite the air wafting in through the hole.  In fact the breeze, which should have been much stronger, could barely be felt inside the tree, as if something were stopping it.  The only sound was a faint, vaguely wooden stretching or tearing, as if you could hear the plants grow.  It was nothing like the Forest Haven. 

            The children took their first tentative steps forward.  The ground was thick with moss, much like at Forest Haven, but a path had been worn through to the bare wooden floor; it was yellow and a little slick with moisture.  “It looked dead from the outside,” Roxy noted, speaking a few octaves below her usual volume, as if not wanting to disturb the silence.  After a few steps, the entrance was just a vague, misty whiteness in space.

            John listened very carefully as they went, Hylian ears darting left and right, not wanting to be surprised by any unexpected enemies.  He’d been told to expect monsters, among other things.  Their footsteps echoed, and the mists above darkened to black, implying they were in a large chamber.  Grass was growing here and there from the moss, thicker even than the grass at Forest Haven.  He wondered how that could be without any sunlight.

            The tension the kids felt upon entering the tree began to fade very quickly, and was gone by the time they reached the door.  It came back instantly when Aradia shrieked and actually _charged_ the door, stopping just short and perusing it, wide-eyed and manic grinned.  “This thing is _ancient_ ,” she said, running her hand up the wood.  There was a curling pattern, like a vine or stylized wind, drawn in crude red lines fading to pink at the edges, painted large on the surface.  When she reached it, she scratched off a little with a practiced scrape of her index talon and tasted it.  “The paint!  This dye is of a composition that hasn’t been made since the rock-eater culture!  But that must mean—” here she gasped and leapt up to the top of the doorframe, aided by a hefty flap of her wings.  She felt around with her knuckles and her claws, until she found a place where the wood gave way, bending squishily.  Without any hesitation she put her fist through it with a _*plop*_ and quickly scraped out the rotten wood.  Inside the hole, barely visible in the hazy green light, was a series of interlocking gears made of ancient, darkened wood, themselves half rotted.

            “This is the same technology that moved the doors in Dragonroost Cavern!” she declared excitedly.  She leapt down from the wall and landed smartly before her friends, flicking off the rotten matter before squeezing them into a hug.  “There’s some kind of connection here!  Don’t you see what this means!?” she shouted, voice reverberating through the chamber like a musical note in her harp’s soundbox. 

            “Does it mean we can open it by kicking?” John asked, remembering the strange doors in the cavern. 

            “Oh _heavens_ no,” Aradia said happily.  “Those gears are way too rotten to work for anything now. We’re stuck here if we can’t find a way to break through!”  She bounced on the balls of her feet as if the news had just made her day.  “What’s _important_ is that I might have just proved the existence of Drowned Hylia, or at least discovered the source of the inspiration for the legends!”

            “Well of course it exists,” Roxy said, somewhat unenthused.  “I mean, everyone knows about it and all the different stories match up…?”

            “But this is proof!”  Aradia declared.  John and Roxy looked at each other, not seeing the point of proving something that most people agreed was real.  “Now what I would really like to know is whether the rock-eaters are the same race as the people who obviously settled here once or if several races were united under a shared cultural identity or political entity—”

            “Wait _house?”_ John said, furrowing his brow at her as hard as he could. 

            Aradia nodded and pointed off to the left.  “Can’t you see it?”  Then she startled as if remembering something like having abused one of her privileges. “Oh right, guys I’m so sorry I forgot that human sight isn’t as good as trolls’, you must be having trouble with this mist…um…” she snatched the Deku Leaf, still in Roxy’s grasp, and waved it all around herself.  A slight wind actually picked up inside the room, clearing the air for a moment or two, enough to get a vague outline of the room.  There was certainly…something off to the right. 

            John scratched his chin.  His wind-sense was heightening every day, as was his magic.  “Let me see that leaf,” he said, holding out his hand.  “I’m pretty sure it’s mine anyway,” he added with a slight chuckle.  The stem was warm from overuse and the tip of the leaf was wrinkled from his and Roxy’s grasp, though it seemed to be uncurling before his very eyes.  The emerald sparks flared in brightness and frequency as John held it.  He flapped it once, as if shaking out a dusty rug and wind filled the room, tearing at the mist, shredding it like cobweb, until it had faded away to nothing.  The room instantly became visible to human eyes, but for a few ragged wisps.

            The source of the light was revealed to actually be moss on the walls, massive amounts of it glowing faintly green.  The room was vaguely oblong, and almost tended to rectangular in shape, with a warped corner several yards to the left of the door.  To its right, the ground sloped upward, pushed up by root-like growths of darker wood, somehow growing inside the tree.  They merged into a trunk, itself sunken into the wall.  The trunk had been hollowed out into a crude sort of dwelling; benches and shelves had been carved right into the living wood.  In the center, a table had been carved once, but it had collapsed under the weight of a gargantuan nut, and the wreckage was overgrown by the tangled vines.  “Huh,” Roxy said musingly, “the local plants seem really…hostile.”

            “What do you mean by that?” John asked, eyeing the nut.  Its shell was made of dark, reddish wood.

            “That’s three plants parasitizing each other,” she pointed out.  “The nut plant is mooching off the tree which is stealing from the Forbidden Woods.”

            “Oh,” he said, “Like when a tree grows through another tree to reach sunlight?”

            “The same idea,” Roxy said, and would likely have said more if not for Aradia ripping the nut from its plant with a mighty wrenching tear, and heaving the thing over her head.  “Let’s go explore the rest of this place,” Aradia declared, a look of ecstatic determination on her face.  With very little effort other, she hopped down from the ledge, not even bothering to slow her fall with her wings, and lugged the nut over to the door.  Then, with a scream of primal, trollish hatred, she heaved the nut _through_ the door, splintering both into a kindling and delicious chunks of nutmeat.  “Let’s go!” she declared in a sing-songy voice, so invigorated by having an all new archaeological proving ground that she didn’t even care about destroying one measly artifact.

            John and Roxy rushed to join her and then followed as she skipped through the door, humming to herself.  “Hey Roxy,” she said, walking backwards, in pure bliss.  “Next time we see a cool artifact, if you don’t mind, could you take a pictograph of it?”  Aradia bent and scooped up a chunk of pale nutmeat the size of a handfruit. She began to eat it, clearly relishing the taste.  The area they had entered was not as thick with mist as the first room, though it was difficult to see the end.  It was shaped something like a cathedral, with a high peaked ceiling, wreathed in mist of course.  More parasitic tree trunks were growing through the ceiling into the floor, like pillars, though they served more to obstruct the view than to provide structural support.  At the opposite end of the room was another doorway, identical to the first, flanked by more of the carven houses.

            “Sure,” Roxy said as she pulled out the pictobox.  “How about now actually?  Hey, strike a pose!” Aradia stood proudly, splendid smile spreading to her whole body as she presented ‘her’ discoveries, first standing before the scene then showcasing the individual features of the room.  She grabbed John and made him play the part of her assistant.  As there was not any present danger, Roxy followed the two deeper into the room, pictographing as she went.  As she stepped through the portal, she kicked over a splinter of the door and vaguely noticed it had been lodged in the moss. 

            “John, look more curious!” Aradia demanded; Roxy snickered as he attempted a serious, scientific face.  Hmm, she thought, wouldn’t that mean that the moss had grown while the door was open? 

            “Hey,” Roxy said, “both of you go inside that house and sit around on the furniture like you’re having a tea party!”  It would make sense, as the Deku King sent regular excursions into the forbidden woods through this path. 

            They made their leisurely pace to the house on the left, ducking to get through its doorway.  John found he could barely fit on the lone chair.  “I guess they couldn’t be the same species as the rock-eaters,” he grumbled.  “Unless they were actually tiny.”  He leaned back and the chair collapsed under him with an almost sarcastic crack.  Roxy bit her lip, still thinking as she took the pictograph, making a mental note to laugh at it later.  If the door hadn’t been functioning in so long, it must have been stuck in its open position until something else closed it.

            “That might be an important discovery John!” Aradia said, pulling him to his feet.  The three kids stepped out into the main chamber.  “Let’s try the other one now; it might be this was simply intended as a child’s roo—”

            A monster screamed through the air towards the children, beautiful and hideous at once.  Its enormous, single eye was unsuited to a flying creature, and yet it flew, black body sucking in light, iridescent green wings and feathery feelers throwing it off like verdant fire.   It had two massive pincer-like jaws, each as long and sharp as a machete, audibly shearing against each other as the creature soared.  Its wings seemed impossibly delicate, patterned as they were with bruise purples and muted reds and golds in the form of a hideous, heart-shaped face with no mouth; they glittered with cascades of dust and tiny scales, a compliment to the Deku Leaf’s magical residue.  Its abdomen, glowing brilliant green where it was not plated with rust colored scales, swelled almost to bursting, and then deflated all at once.  A wad of black and orange matter sprayed out of its rear; a clutch of eggs, followed by an afterbirth of flaming blood that sent it rocketing across the room like a firework from the depths of the deepest hell.  Either through some convoluted chemical process or dark magic, it propelled itself by giving birth.

            “Get down!” John yelled, pushing Roxy over, into the house; a splatter of fiery liquid hit his boot and he shouted.  Roxy snatched the Deku Leaf from his hands and beat out the fire, kicking up several gusts of wind that scattered embers to the far corners of the room, starting even more fires.  The creature, faintly glowing, was stalking them from the ceiling, wreathed in mist and smoke.

            Aradia was on the ground too, breathing hard.  “Holy crap,” John sputtered, crawling over to her, “I’m sorry, are you okay?!”

            ‘I’m fine!” She breathed, shooting him a little smile.  “Really, don’t feel bad.  I just…really didn’t expect that!”

            They both laughed, more out of relief than because they found it funny.  Aradia put her hand on John’s, the monster’s light reflected in her eyes.  “Let’s get to shelter and strategize, yeah?”

            John nodded.  Then the monster screamed, bent its fattened abdomen like a scorpion’s sting, and a shower of black eggs rained down on the kids as it crawled away to a more concealed part of the ceiling.

            John screamed into his collar, biting down to prevent from startling the animal into another attack.  The eggs were plump and fleshy, like snake or fish eggs, and slightly sticky, though they began to harden very quickly.  “Why!” he continued to scream into his shirt.  “Farore why the _fuck_ did you create such a disgusting animal!?” 

            He continued to scream mutedly and [Aradia sat up, hugging him](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiS2mT0FtAA).  “I know,” she said, gently stroking his back, feeling oddly both cool and warm at once as she did, “a lot of things in this world are really weird and stupid, and even a little scary.  I want you to know that you’re a really brave boy John, for doing this!  I mean, no one would have picked you out as the adventuring type, and yet here you are.”  She pulled back and looked him in the face; he was more than slightly embarrassed, though he was smiling, proudly at that.  Aradia felt a slight pang as she noticed his skin changing color, turning almost red.  What was his deal?  She could swear that he had been having pale thoughts about her; she’d never understand humans.  “You’re a good person, and I respect you a lot,” she finished weakly.

            Aradia averted her gaze, suddenly feeling stupid.  Sure, there was all these nonsense thoughts involving humans and quadrants, but what’s more, she hadn’t even bothered to clean herself off first and the stupid eggs had actually developed hideous orange _burrs_ to cling to her clothes!  She tried to pull one off, but it was well and truly stuck.  She conjured up a little fire, sneering at the disgusting thing.  Then a slit on its side opened up, revealing a hideous eye, bloodshot and multi-colored.  It blinked at her.  She burned it with extreme prejudice—

            And was pounced on by the swarm that had been birthed at the start of the encounter.

 

            John felt them hit like a heavy, _sharp_ wave; each individual was light but all were covered in burrs, and together they nearly crushed him even as he shifted to keep the brunt of the wave off Aradia.  Then, just as quickly as they were upon him, they were gone, blown away by Roxy and the Deku Leaf.  She rushed out, snatching him by the hand, and dragged him into the house.

            “Aradia!” John sputtered, spitting out a wad of blood; the left side of his mouth was torn; he felt the sting of dozens of cuts all over him.  Many would scar, he knew.  The sharp edges those things bore were not just for gripping but for bringing down prey.  “We can’t just leave her again I already left her once today!”

            Before he could heroically charge into the swarm, Roxy was rushing out the door laying all around her with the leaf until the path was clear of ravenous egg-creatures.  Aradia was prone on the ground, so Roxy picked her up and threw her over her shoulder.  She groaned with surprised effort; the girl was shorter but much _denser_ thanks to trollish muscle.  Roxy turned on her heel and ran back inside, laying her as gently as she could on the table.  Then she dropped the leaf and took the rod off her belt holster, channeling Din’s fire through its gem and out the door, clearing the ground outside of monsters, for the time being at least.  “How’s she doing!?” Roxy demanded, looking up and around for more signs of danger.

            John, on his part, was feeling the beginnings of panic.  His shirt and pants were already stained with rapidly growing blotches of his own blood; in his current state the sight of Aradia’s was not doing him any favors.  Even worse was the lack of an apparent pulse.  “Trolls don’t have hearts right?” he asked.

            Roxy sputtered as if she’d heard something incredibly stupid.  “Of course they do! Johnny did you hit your head!?”  She rushed over, forgetting her self-imposed guard duty to examine her friend’s skull for damage. 

            John slapped her hand away.  “Dammit no!  Aradia needs help now!”

            Roxy looked down at the troll and swore.  “This doesn’t make sense,” she muttered, feeling for a pulse like John had.  “She’s not as hurt as you are!”

            “I was trying to protect her,” John muttered.  “How could…?”

            Aradia’s lifeless face contained the barest ghost of a smile as her lifeless eyes gazed up at the ceiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, it has been too long… I know I said by July and that’s still plenty of time but almost three weeks since that declaration and this chapter is worrying to me. In fairness to myself, I tried to start this chapter immediately but it was a false start that ate up about a week of my time, though it did give me a great team name; Sleuth Team 6. There was also one weekend that was a nonstop party. It was hells of fun yo (not really I hate parties).  
> Our music came from two great GameCube classics that we should all replay right now! :D I had waited to use the great sea theme for an appropriate moment. Rather than sailing I chose this one because I almost always ended up doing the gliding section at dawn, when the theme would normally start if that section were not silent. it makes the scene very powerful and slightly eerie for the player, but damn if it wouldn't be a powerful memory if the theme started up at just the right moment...  
> Oh man and now I’m getting ideas involving _The Thousand Year Door_ though…  
>  Mothula are _really_ gross now that I have to think about it. Morths are actually harmless but they do not _look_ harmless, and I was trying to make them at least slightly menacing.  
>  And I totally just killed off Aradia fuck your shit.


	16. Season One Recap: The Road So Far

            [Previously on _Breath Waker_ …](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X_2IdybTV0&feature=kp)

            On coolkid Dave Strider’s birthday, the kidnapped pirate captain of _the Grimdark_ , Rose Lalonde, was dropped on the summit of Outset Mountain by the monstrous Abraxas.  Dave is knighted in an impromptu ceremony by his enigmatic sensei and bro, Bro.  Along with local rube John Egbert and his sister Jade (who is perfect), he travels into the Fairy Forest to rescue her.  Upon emerging, the monster attacked and, in the struggle, Jade was taken.

            John and Dave pressured the pirate captain to take them to the creature’s lair, the Forsaken Fortress, in the northern reaches of the Great Sea.  They play a game with the probable-idiot-savant and ship’s artillerist, Jake English, to pass the time, for nothing of value whatsoever.

            The two boys are sent careening into the Fortress’s wall by a disastrous mistake, and Dave’s sword is broken.  They stealthily work their way up through the fortress, but are separated in a run-in with some Moblins just as the pirates begin to bombard the enemy.  Upon finally reaching his sister, John is taken by surprise by Abraxas, because he is an idiot, I mean the thing is a goddamn giant with wingbeats like thunder, way to drop the ball, _John_ , and taken to the lord of the fortress, Caliborn, who dismisses him and has him tossed into the ocean.

            Meanwhile the fantabulous Roxy Lalonde, one of the girls interned within the fortress and alcoholic ninja extraordinaire, makes her escape, along with a magical talking pink boat named _the Princess of Pink Tentacats,_ a.k.a. Jaspers.  They find John drifting in the ocean and row for two weeks to Windfall Island, one of the few towns of any significant size out on the ocean.  Here they do odd jobs in order to purchase a sail, and Jaspers tells them about how the world is at stake.  Dave Strider is certainly this generation’s Hero, and they need to pave the way for his ascent to power so he can once again seal away Ganondorf, principally by collecting three Pearls sacred to the Goddesses and enduring a trial of the Gods.

            The gang travels to the island of the trolls, Dragonroost Island.  Jaspers gives John a “thing”; the Breath Waker, an object whose importance and power borders on the titular, which will allow certain individuals to command the wind.  Here they are also reunited with John’s favorite postman, Karkat Vantas, and introduced to a variety of characters, including Empress Feferi Peixes, Prince Eridan Ampora, and the memetically adorable (and woolly) Aradia Megido.  The Prince, holder of Din’s Pearl, will trade the pearl in exchange for John climbing Dragonroost Mountain and speaking with Pyralspite, the dragon-god of the island who is currently losing his shit.

            The three of them spend far too long climbing the mountain, although the god of winds, Zephos, very casually gives John his new title of Breath Waker.  Inside the mountain, Aradia gives lectures on the science of volcanoes and biology, which would have been irritating to the reader if anyone other than Aradia had done it.  Upon speaking to Pyralspite, through his mouthpiece the always delightfully insane Te[rezi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rezi), they learn that an ancient monster, Hephaestus, is terrorizing the dragon from inside the volcano.  The kids climb down into it _again_ and confront the creature.  They are basically about to get pwned hardcore, until Aradia snaps and goes into some kind of crazy reverse blood-rage and kills it using psychic powers.  John paps her back to normal, but she decks him in the face because she doesn’t like him like that, although it’s kind of obvious she does.

            John and company, after a night of celebration, set out to Forest Haven in the south.  Along the way, Roxy teaches the rest of the Tentacat crew ( _Tentacrew!?_ ) a smidgen of magic.  They then encounter a crazy old man searching for the Golden Triumph Forks, who ropes them into a quest aboard the tenebrous Ghost ship.  Here, Aradia gets macked on by some other schmoe she doesn’t like, this time the moldering Poe of Orphaner Dualscar.  John and Roxy come to her rescue, forever cementing them as the One True Threesome of the story, and damn what the tags may say.  John uses the magic Roxy taught him to cheat at a game of Dead Man’s Volley, and did you know that that’s the actual name for the tennis thing some bosses make you do in Zelda?  I always just called it Evil Tennis… Regardless, John and crew get away with their lives and a piece of the Triforce, a bit of leftover magic from the creation of the world, I said, to the two people in the audience who have _not_ played Zelda.

            Meanwhile, Dave has been heroing more or less on his lonesome, with the occasional help of a pair of salty bards, Gamzee Makara (who John and Roxy had rescued from Windfall prison) among them.  He uncovers a certain artifact on his brand new private cabana that is probably just a dusty old flute and nothing to worry about whatsoever.  He has still not taken off the sunglasses Jade gave him for his birthday, even once.

            The _Tentacrew_ (fuck it I’m using it) finally arrive at Forest Haven and rid the Deku king of his pest problem.  The local white Carapacians are perfectly willing to hand over their Pearl, until it turns out that Ms. Paint, an important part of their yearly ceremony, has fallen into the Forbidden Woods across the channel.  The kids are duped into retrieving her in time for the festival by horrible people taking advantage of John’s ancient duties.  Inside the evil tree, they are attacked by a vicious Mothula that swarms the gang with morths.  Yes, these are real monster names from Zelda.

            Unfortunately, things turn serious when, right after a heartfelt conversation with John, Aradia is crushed beneath the swarm and presumably killed.  John is critically injured, and he and Roxy are holed up inside a hollow tree waiting for the Mothula to attack.

            To Be Continued in Season Two…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah sorry, looks like I’m not gonna finish by the self-imposed deadline, but if you can forgive Hussie for flaking on you as often as he has, you can forgive me right? :D  
> Anyway this was meant entirely to do the _Supernatural_ reference and for no other reason than to tell you the next chapter will be out reasonably soon, after I take care of a more personal one (original novel yo, remember to buy it when it’s out, a.k.a. never), enjoy this dumbass thing until then. Reread it. Comment on things you didn’t understand or even didn’t like. Theorize about shit. I may or may not steal your ideas, especially if you become my friend.


	17. The Parasitic Forest

[The morth was blown away by a gust of wind.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3Nc4iR7rGA)  Its single bloodshot eye was not terribly good at seeing, and so Aradia was more than a little confused at finding herself inside its body.  The taste of hyoi was still fresh in her new mouth—she didn’t think she’d had one.  She could make out pinks and blues but not greens of any kind; thankfully this made Roxy stand out like a brilliant flare against the smudgy greys of the room, like the negative of a lit candle.  It seemed infinite in its vastness now, its edges depthless blue-grey walls of haze.  Aradia tried to crawl over to her friend but found that she had no instinct for controlling the monster, and her mouth was not formed for anything much more than being a horrible tooth-ringed pit intended to suck in fruit and small bugs like a sinkhole while terrifying the shit out of people.  Or so she assumed; Roxy hardly looked at her before firing off a blast of flame, scorching greasy-grey looking moss into ash.

All around her brother and sister morths screamed as they boiled in their shells until they exploded (though her brain was all insect her _mind_ was still a troll and relished in the smell of cooking shellfish).  However, she had been positioned _just_ so, and the heat of the fire lifted her up in a calming, warm updraft, higher and higher, up to the grey ceiling.  She realized that this was how morths must reproduce; the mother shot out her disgusting eggs, then started a fire, scattering their surprisingly light forms into the wind.

The Mothula screamed across Aradia’s line of sight, a nearly invisible smear of grey, its edges brilliantly colored, trailing fire like a comet, and Aradia was buffeted far away into the corner of the room.  She hit the wall and bounced off, tumbling as she fell so the whole world spun crazily.  Beneath her was a crack in the floor, so black and huge (though to her troll form it would be barely big enough for her arm). 

She drifted down through it.  Aradia floated into a massive chamber, the counterpart to the Deku King’s grove in the Carapacian city, though it was impossible to judge depth with her one eye.  What’s more, almost all of it the same murky grey that she had been having trouble seeing.  But what made Aradia want to gasp was the gigantic flower suspended below her.  It was huge and blue-white, almost too bright to look at with her horrible morth vision, the edges of its petals a burning, dim violet.  It bloomed atop a woody stem that was bigger than a house, but most interesting of all were its roots.  They had twisted and snarled every which way in a wriggling woody mass, but only a few had found purchase, stretching into thin tendrils and hooking onto the walls.  Perhaps at one point this flower had been rooted to a wall, but now it was suspended a hundred feet above the chamber floor.

She was still tumbling, and was only able to take it in in snatched glances, but it was so lovely that she kept it in her mind.  But suddenly, it felt like her tiny body was seized, from the inside out.  An intelligence took root in Aradia’s mind, massive compared to the insect brain she’d inexplicably borrowed, and still quite hefty by troll standards, or so she figured.  It reached deep down, into her borrowed animal instincts, and then her sticky orange burrs were twisting, turning, arranging themselves, changing her wind resistance, until finally she was gliding, as well as a puffy lump of chitin can glide, straight towards the flower.  She landed on top of it with barely a sensation, and the intelligence propelled her forward like tiny springs; she even heard them make a sound, like the snap of tiny piano strings.  _Excuse me,_ she thought tentatively in the direction of the alien intelligence, _how are you doing this? And why?_

It did not deign to respond; she perceived that it was like a tree, a big golden tree of mind, its roots spreading throughout the tree of wood and all its parasitic plants, imbedding itself in the minds of the simple creatures that lived within its wooden walls.  There came the strange thrumming sound of the spiraling golden creatures from outside; they looked like puffs of golden dandelion floating in the breeze, too fast for her eyes to really catch except their burning blue spots.  Pairs of young Mothulae, their wings not yet grown, scuttled up the walls towards the flower’s tendrils, distinguishable to Aradia’s vision only by the rusty markings on their abdomens.  Two of them climbed all the way to the ceiling until they were directly above the flower and dropped.  One of them missed its mark, and tumbled to the darkness below.  The sounds of Boko Babas feasting reached up into her primitive ears while the Mothula that stuck its landing began to dig into the flower’s flesh, completely disregarding the death of its friend.

Aradia saw now the true shape the Forbidden Woods, a cesspit of parasitic incest and death, one massive organism being leeched by others, like the treehouses, and the flower on which she stood, themselves being fed upon by the tree, and by smaller plants, and finally by the few creatures deemed base enough as to be harmless.  Insects mostly, with the odd squirrel slowly being choked to death by fungal spores here and there.

A swarm of her morth cousins came crawling up the walls like a black cloud, and another drifted down onto the flower the same way she had done.  Slowly the weight of them began to crush her body, but she could not move unless the great intelligence willed it.  _I’m sorry,_ it boomed at long last, _all you little morths stuck under there, this is the only way._

A tendril snapped like a steel cable beneath the jaws of a Mothula and came crashing down onto the morth pile, shattering their shells and sending their spiny bodies flying.  Meekly, feeling her lifeblood leaking from her, Aradia said, _it’s okay, really,_ before her shell cracked and everything went back.

 

The great winged Mothula had landed and crawled its disgusting, chitinous way over to a crack in the floor, and John followed.  It turned to pour a sickening black river of its eggs into the hole; its singular eye did not seem to see him approach, even as he raised his hammer and struck.  It was dead in one blow, its eye popping like an overripe melon, its primitive brain spilling out of its braincase like so much rancid fruit syrup, but John did not stop.  He swung the hammer again and again, shattering its body with each swing.  Glowing green scales and rusty dander sprayed up with each blow, striking his face, then thick, syrupy purple blood and yellow hydraulic fluids from its joints, splattering all over his shirt.  He snarled and growled, angrier than he had ever been that such a weak monster had slain his dear friend, who had toppled a god.  His ears pricked up as high as they could go, their fur standing like they’d been struck by lightning, and his hair almost following suit.

Roxy might have stopped this display, once.  However, she was disinclined to feel generous to an insect, and maybe John just needed to get this out of his system.  Watching him, she felt she might have been afraid of him if the situation was different, if it hadn’t been Aradia who had died.

Aradia’s body shot bolt upright, coughing and hacking out a glob of phlegm, colored a sickly orange by the Mothula slime she’d ingested.  Her friends turned to look at her, tears and gore staining their faces, which were now displaying a complex mixture of rage, grief, and befuddlement.  Aradia’s own face had settled into confusion; she’d just died twice as far as she was aware.  But then, after a second or two, she fluttered her lashes and smiled a big, wide smile.  They really did care!

Her stomach rumbled, breaking the silence.  “Who do I need to pap to get some Deku nuts around here?” she said, starting to giggle.  A huge, woody crunch sounded far below.

 

Aradia shoveled toasted, honeyed Deku nuts into her mouth while recounting her story as Roxy wiped off John’s face.  “That’s about it,” she said, licking her fingers.  “Sweet Din, I need some meat now.”

“Why do you think this happened though?” asked Roxy, giving her handkerchief a disgusted look.  She threw it to the floor instead of pocketing it.  “Maybe your deathy powers activated because you thought you were dying and your soul left your body?”  John just stared at the troll, brow furrowed.

Aradia shook her head, curls bouncing.  “I’ve had an out of body experience before,” she said.  “I really was almost dead then.  I’m pretty sure my soul can tell the difference.”  She ran her hand along her scalp, thinking.  It came away sticky.  She crinkled her nose, staring at a yellowish substance stuck on the tips of her claws.  “What the hell, did I fall on some fruit—” she gasped.  “My hyoi pear!  Where is it?”  Aradia turned and twisted on the table, searching frantically as she could for the pear without actually getting down from it.

“Sorry,” said John, “One of those bugs must have eaten it.”

Aradia, hanging upside down to look under the table, smacked her own horns.  “Right!  I remember tasting pears when I was a bug…”  Her eyes bugged out and she righted herself.  “What if the pear let me control another creature?”

“That’s a really dumb idea Rae-Rae,” said Roxy, squinting at the troll.  “It makes no sense.  Why would anyone make a magic item that worked that way? It’s so unintuitive!”

“I have a spare,” said Aradia, pulling another pear from the folds of her top.  “Or should I say s’ _pear?_ ”

Roxy banged her head on the frame of the treehouse, snorting, while John chuckled wholeheartedly.  “We can try feeding it to the next animal we find,” said John.  “And then we’ll have an animal companion to take on our adventures, except that we’ll also have to carry around your comatose body in the meantime.”

“Yeah!” said Aradia.  “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Roxy giggled into her hand.  “Oh my fuck you guys, would you believe _I_ was the weird friend back home?  _Me?_   Compared to you losers?”

 

After about twenty minutes of searching, an exit was found.  In the back of another of the treehouses was a still-functioning mechanical door, like the one Aradia had torn down, seemingly so long ago.  It had become overgrown by thin green vines with fleshy orange flowers; Roxy hacked them off in no time with the severed mandible of the Mothula, as sharp as a machete.  “Ugly but effective,” she said, appraising the black blade-like piece.  “I think I’m gonna keep it.  Magic is all fine and good but it takes a lot out of me.”

In that time, the group saw the moss on the floor growing over their footsteps, coming back thicker and greener than before.  No wonder the forest seemed completely untouched despite the apparently regular forays sent by the Carapacians.

Through the door was a long tunnel made from a hollowed log that had been laid between two branches of the host tree.  The ends were nailed in place with huge ironwood pins, still shiny yellow after however many centuries of decay and salty air.  The right side had once been home to an array of large bay windows, or so John assumed.  A huge jagged strip had fallen off, from nearly one end to the other, leaving only vaguely carven shapes where the window might have been.  The very edge of the sun was rising above the topmost edge of the hole, and sunlight streamed through for just a moment.  The ocean was pounding against the base of the great trunk far below.

The left side had been breached by four of the tangling, thorny vines, three in a cluster right by the door and one closer to the midpoint of the tunnel.  The kids had to duck under a thorn; it moved as they did so, trying to touch them.  “I think it reacts to heat,” said Roxy, waving the tip of her rod in front of her face.  The thorns stretched toward its glowing pink gem instead of her body.

John shuddered.  “Do you think they…hunt or something?”

“Probably,” said Roxy.  “You’ve already seen Boko Babas, and there are tons of plants that eat meat back in Chosen.”

“All over the world in fact,” said Aradia, tossing a chunk of nutmeat at the vines.  It bounced off unharmed.  “It’s really interesting!  Some scientists think that there’s two sets of lifeforms on this planet, those descended from creatures with no clear boundary between plants and animals, and those that can be easily categorized as one or the other.”

“That’s _really_ interesting,” said John flatly, picking up a glowing green beetle the length of his thumb off the floor.  He flicked it at the vine cluster, which twitched frantically until the insect was crushed.  Its remains slowly sank into the vines, their outer skin surprisingly spongey, until there was nothing left.  “But let’s move on!”

They trudged along down the tunnel, carefully picking their way across the half-rotted ground.

 

They got an opportunity to test the hyoi pears in the next room, carved from a knot in the wood.  It was open to the air; and a pair of kargarocs had flown in to deliver a payload of two green-skinned Bokoblins.  The forest however, was not letting them get away with it.

Near the ceiling-hole, one was being twisted and crushed between a pair of thorny vines, already dead, its blood seeping into their green flesh.  The other was squawking its awkward goat-like cry as a pair of Boko Babas tore at its legs, their fat yellow tongues wrapping around its legs.

The two Bokoblins were sitting on the floor, gazing up amusedly at their former mounts, until they noticed the children and immediately forgot about their lack of a ride.  They jumped up and made their hunched, hopping way over to the party.  On the second step, the one on the left was immediately swallowed by a gigantic, carnivorous flower, red-violet and tiger-striped.  The other screamed in pain and leapt aside, and then Roxy went after him.

She lifted her improvised weapon and swung it down with both hands, burying the wicked, serrated tip in its brain.  The mandible immediately broke in half.  Roxy threw it down in disgust just as the Bokoblin fell to the floor, gibbering and twitching.

The kargaroc was still squawking up near the lip of the hole.  The Boko Babas’ mouths were touching each other in a gruesome kiss, each crunching down on a quarter of the bird’s total mass, their tongues constricting its chest like pythons.  A pile of golden feathers lay on the floor immediately beneath it, the severed tail coiled around like a protective serpent.  John drew his slingshot and silenced the creature with a shot to the throat, ending its misery.

Meanwhile, Aradia sauntered up to the carnivorous flower, a short knife in one hand and a hyoi pair in another.  “We really need a swordsman on this team,” she said as she carved away the petals.  “This would be much easier with a sword.”

The other two looked at her oddly, but she was focusing on her work, so Roxy had to clear her throat.  “What are you actually doing right now?”

“Letting the Bokoblin out,” she explained.  “I can hear him moving around in there, so I should be able to.”

“Yeah but why?” asked John.  Then he smacked his forehead.  “You’re gonna test the pear on _that?”_

“What else am I gonna test it on?” she asked testily, “a fire breathing giant moth or a network of predatory vines the size of an island?  Or maybe I’ll just use this warm-blooded humanoid that’s easily subdued and already sedated!”  John admitted that she had a point.

When the Bokoblin had been extracted, he looked more grateful than anything.  “Aww, you poor monster baby,” cooed Aradia, patting his head just behind the horn as he lay in the moss, breathing hard.  “Here, have a nice piece of fruit,” she said, offering the hyoi.

He sniffed the yellow lump, eyeing the strange face-like markings.  He wrinkled his porcine snout at the thing, but then decided to eat it anyway, enveloping it with his shocking purple tongue and sucking it back into his huge, froggy mouth, crunching and swallowing it down, seeds and all.  And then Aradia’s soul passed from her own body into the Bokoblin’s.

She saw herself falling, only to be caught by John.  What a sweet boy.  She stood up, admiring the surprising strength in her skinny arms and legs; the muscles underneath were like steel cables, thin but powerful.

She noticed she was hunching, bent almost double, and tried to stand up straight, but her spine didn’t allow it, starting to hurt at a certain point, and refusing to straighten at all just past that.  She wondered if that was just how Bokoblins were shaped or if hers just suffered from back problems.  Regardless, she felt that her weight was most well balanced with a stooping posture anyway, head forward like a hunting mammal, shoulders back and legs spread wide.  She waved at her friends, and the concern immediately melted away from their faces.

“Can you speak?” asked Roxy.  Her voice sounded muffled; Bokoblins had worse hearing than trolls, it seemed.  Aradia opened her mouth to say something, but all that came out was screeching and hissing, mixed with very few recognizable phonemes.  She figured that Bokoblins were capable of speaking their own language, since they seemed to understand English.  It made her sad, and she vowed to research the topic, and eventually even compile and anthropology of the monster races of the Great Sea.  Now that would be something.

She tried to tell her friends all about her thoughts, but of course, they had no idea what she meant.  Aradia tossed her head, giving her beady goblin eyes a roll.  The experiment was a success of course, so now she just needed to know how to break out of it.

She noticed her attendants for the first time in a long time; she’d gotten so used to them that she barely thought about it, but they were with her as always, and what’s more the Forbidden Woods was very haunted, nearly every part of it at least slightly obscured by the white fog that indicated the presence of ghosts.  But now her attendants were looking down, pointing (the ones that had fingers that is), as if they could see through the floor.  Something reached up from the ground and into her, taking hold of her heart.

 _You again!_   She shouted psychically at the great intelligence.  Not quite so great now she was in a normal sized body.

 _Oh, um, hello,_ it said.  _I’m sorry but I need to borrow you.  Wait didn’t you die?_   As it spoke to her Aradia turned on her paw and arched from the chamber towards the next door.  It was sealed shut with vines, so she turned back around and sprinted for her machete.

“Are you okay Aradia?” John asked as she picked it up.  She hissed in response.  He saw that her Bokoblin eyes looked dull and glassy, as if she were in a trance, just like her regular body.  “Oh shit,” John realized.

“Hmm?” asked Roxy, watching Aradioblin cut through the door.

“Can you sense anything magical?” John asked.  The vines were gone, but the door wouldn’t open, so she kept right on hacking at it, hoping to chop it down.

“John,” said Roxy, “don’t take this too harshly because I love you like a brother almost, but magic isn’t some ‘do whatever the fuck’ card.  I can’t just announce that I’m gonna do a thing with magic and then roll a die and if the number is lower than my current level of magic then I can do it.  I have not in all our time together indicated that I can sense magic, except maybe when someone is shooting it right at us.  So no John, I can’t tell if there’s anything magical going on or not.”

John groaned.  “I think something is borrowing her, the same way that she was borrowing the Bokoblin.”

“The great intelligence thing,” Roxy muttered, squinting at the Aradioblin.  “I thought it only affected insects, like some kind of magic insect queen or whatever but…” she trailed off, uncertain.  “How do we get her back then?” she said, nudging John in the ribs, “the kiss of life clearly didn’t wake the sleeping princess last time,” Roxy snickered, trying to lighten the mood. 

John thought for a moment, stroking his chin, furrowing his brow.  “VIOLENCE IS THE ANSWER!” He concluded, and leapt toward Aradia.

He clocked her right in the goblinish face, and her real body came to.

 

“It was him,” Aradia said, stroking her nose.  She felt a phantom pain from John’s punch to her bokoblinsona.  The three were sitting in a circle around a stump, on which Roxy had set out a little meal.  Greenish, herbal water streamed from a hole she’d bored in the wall; heated with magic to kill any bacteria, it made a lovely tea.  “Or it.  Whatever.”  Aradia muttered, turning to look at the hole in the door.  The Bokoblin had slipped right through like a lizard after she’d left its body, the great intelligence gripping its mind hard.

“How closely related do you think Carapacians are to insects?” Aradia wondered.

Roxy snorted.  “Wow, _racist_ much?”

Aradia growled.  “I am just wondering if maybe it took control of Ms. Paint?  What if it can take Carapacians just like it can take morths and Mothula?”

“It would explain why they couldn’t do this themselves,” John muttered into his cup.  “But Bokoblins aren’t insects, right?”

Aradia nodded, smiling enthusiastically.  “They’re monotremes, egg-lying mammals!  They’re also hermaphroditic, and they have two di—”

Roxy covered Aradia’s mouth with lightning-reflexes.  ‘That’s amazing and beautiful and the circle of life is a wonder to behold, but I really don’t want to know what goblin dick looks like.  I can live my whole life without knowing that and it’ll be a life well lived.”

Aradia gasped suddenly, loudly, and with such extreme exaggeration that her friends flinched, her back arching and chest swelling.  “I think I might know what it is!” she said.  “But I need to dissect that dead Bokoblin’s brain!”

And with that she stood up and drew her small knife.  It was barely a knife, mostly meant for cutting food.  “I’ll need your hammer, John,” she said, “and something I can use for a chisel.”

“I’ll need some space,” said Roxy, “to contemplate my life choices.”

Roxy waited out in the hall, listening to the ocean with a cup of tea in her hands, though she’d done Aradia the favor of pulling out one of the ironwood pins in the floor with her magic.  It was three feet long, but it would have to do.

John helped her, holding the stake steady while Aradia tapped it in with her hammer.  The Bokoblin’s now exposed skull gleamed in the sunlight, its brain visible and purple through the wedge-shaped hole that Roxy had left it with.  They cut a neat circle that immediately fell into two halves, and Aradia scooped out the organ and held it up to the sun.  “Aha!” she said, gazing at the organ, dripping violently purple blood.  “It doesn’t have two hemispheres!”

John looked at it, head tilted.  It was elongated and thinner in the middle than the tip.  Despite the wound Roxy had left in it, he could tell the thing was one solid piece.  “Whereas humans have like, two halves, right?”

Aradia nodded.  “Trolls too.  The great intelligence only affects creatures with simpler brains, it looks like.”

She rose from her knees, holding the brain in front of her like a prize.  “I gotta go show Roxy!”

John stood up, reached out and grabbed her arm, making her drop the brain, breaking it into a dozen bloody gobbets.  Aradia was horrified.  “Why would you do that?” she whimpered.

“Sorry,” he said, quickly letting go.  “It was an accident and I didn’t mean to, I just, uh…”  He stopped for a minute and stared at her.  Aradia stared back, head-tilted.

“We’ve almost lost you…like a lot.  It’s alarming how often you nearly die, and it scares me a lot so.  Um.”  He trailed off, scratching the back of his head.

“Yeah John?” she said, taking a step forward, a lump of brain squishing under her foot.

“Fuck it,” he whispered, then leaned in and gave her a little kiss at the edge of her mouth.  “Do you wanna be my girlfriend or whatever?” he sputtered out.

Aradia’s jaw dropped.  She took his face in her hands (he didn’t even seem to mind the blood) and smiled.  “I’m really moved John,” she said.  “And super honored that you would ask!”  She leaned down—she was just a bit taller than he was—and kissed him on the bit of skin between his eyes.  For just a second, it felt like an electric charge burrowing right into the pleasure center of his brain.  Aradia let go and took two steps back.  “But no!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *snort* you actually thought? Lol
> 
> I wonder how many people I actually fooled all that time ago with the last cliff-hanger. I want to say nobody that’s played the game, but I dunno, the hyoi pair only works on seagulls in-game (making it neat but not that good of an item, and it’s baffling that it exists when there’s a song that lets you possess people later on anyway...which doesn’t work on seagulls to my knowledge).
> 
> I may have mentioned it before but I think this dungeon is really hard to write and I have been dreading it ever since I started this fic (but The Tower of the Gods is going to be so fun omfg you guys hahahaha fuck all y’all).
> 
> Finally though I stumbled upon this tidbit that I had written almost a year ago, how Roxy observes the nut parasitizing the table that is itself parasitizing the tree, which is also being fed upon by the thorny vines (and is in fact feeding off of them as they devour it) and I realized exactly how to write this dungeon then and there.
> 
> I think The Parasitic Forest is a much better name for this dungeon than The Forbidden Woods anyway.
> 
> For the song I wanted something like _The Hall of the Mountain King_ but wasn’t actually the hall of the mountain king, then I discovered this song and I loved it, especially since it sounded so Homestucky.


	18. The Darkest Part of the Forest

The wind having thoroughly been knocked out of his sails, John sulked.  “We should probably talk about this," said Aradia, face sagging with worry.  Just then Roxy walked in, and immediately walked back out upon seeing two of her friends standing in a puddle of brain.

“Er, maybe when we have some privacy,” said John as the sound of retching carried through the door.  “That we can be sure won’t be interrupted.”

“I swear to Nayru, the two of you,” Roxy grumbled irritably, wiping her mouth.  “You guys are so gross and not in a cute way!”

 

Stepping through the wreckage of the door led the kids into a cavernous chamber.  The edges of the room were wreathed in white smoke and the ceiling lost in darkness.  The walls here were paler wood, like that of the Forest Haven, the rot having grown from the outside in.  Thorny vines as thick as a grown man’s waist crept along the walls, pulsing and throbbing as if in time to a gigantic heartbeat.  The door opened up to a large balcony carved from the wood.  Fifty feet below was water, the sight of which made John gag.  It was murky purple, filled with bits and flotsam.  It bubbled and roiled, and now and again a brighter flash of purple scattered just beneath the surface, a strange bioluminescence.  Things moved underneath.  They might have been long, spiked seaweeds, but they moved far too quickly to be plants.

There was another doorway almost level with the water, and strung between the two platforms was a system of ropes and pulleys, and a crude wooden carriage.  Hesitantly, the kids stepped onto the creaky boards and waited.  Roxy hopped up and down twice.  Nothing happened.

“There!” Aradia pointed.  A wooden device about half as big as a grown human was set into a niche in the wall.  It had been designed to look like a tree, so they hadn’t noticed it at first.  It was roughly teardrop shaped, with something like a weathercock at the top, where it was narrowest.  The arms of the weathercock were tipped with big green bowl-shaped shells, resembling leaves.  A cable ran from the base of the machine and along the wall to a wooden box just above the door the kids had walked in from, to which the cables suspending the carriage were fixed.   “I’ll just fly over and work it manually,” said Aradia, getting ready to jump.

John stepped in front of her with the Deku Leaf and waved it towards the machine.  A burst of air hit the device and the weathercock began to turn, the array propelling the kids down and across at a steady pace.

The ride was quick, but the air lay heavy on the group, and not just from the increasingly noxious fumes as they approached the purple water.  “You okay John?” Roxy asked, nudging him in the ribs.  John grumbled.

“We’re gonna talk about it later,” Aradia whispered loudly.  She was picking dried brain mucus out from under her claws.

“Let’s just rescue Miss Paint or whoever,” John snapped.  At that moment, mercifully, the carriage stopped, and the children disembarked.

The next room was enormous.  Aradia had seen it, but only through the eyes of a morth.  It was a huge, jug-shaped hollow in the tree, its walls thick with moss.  New branches grow from the walls in a spiral pattern, all the way down to the bottom, where more purple water churned, even more hideous and fetid than the pool they had encountered earlier.  In the center of the purple pool was a gigantic knot of thorns that had collapsed inwards under a great weight; scraps of blue and purple petals lined the edges of the hole.  “That’s where the flower fell,” Aradia said, pointing. 

They were near the top, and could see the shape of the branches.  They were rounded at the bottom and bearded with moss, but their grain was exposed at the top as if they’d been split, yellow flesh exposed to the air, and each branch widened into tear-shaped platform at its tip.  With a squishy, creaking sound, the nearest one turned and stretched out to the platform the kids were standing on.  It waited patiently, close enough to step on.

“Do we risk it?” asked Roy, but John had already given his answer, and it was not the one they expected.  He took a running leap off the ledge and plunge towards the great hole below, pulling the Deku Leaf at the last second to halt his fall.  He drifted down into the darkness, out of view.

Roxy and Aradia looked at each other, noting each other’s expressions.  While both were displaying huge frowns of bafflement, Roxy noted that Aradia’s smile carried a tinge of guilt.    Her ears pricked up.  “Okay, what happened while I was throwing up in the other room?”

Aradia laughed nervously.  “Funny story really…”

 

Earlier John had resolved to kill the first living thing he saw, but it turned out to be Roxy, and he felt bad about it.  A nagging little voice in his head that sounded a bit like Jade told him that he was being immature and that he was terrible at dealing with his anger.  He shut it up by telling it that he knew he was bad at dealing with his anger, and that in his defense he’d never _really_ been angry until a few weeks ago when all this adventuring stuff had started.  And really he thought, drifting into the darkness of the thorny chasm, shrouded in a cloud of emerald sparks drifting from the Deku Leaf, being angry was a hell of a lot more exhilarating than being sad, which he’d done a lot of before.

Down and down he fell, until the jagged hole above was just a ragged blot of light no bigger than a coin.  The stench hit him like a physical barrier, and he let go of the leaf with one hand in surprise, plummeting the last few feet.

[He landed on a gigantic flower, floating in the water. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS5YmJhHlCI) If it could still be called water, that is; it was a positively _livid_ purple, and whatever unholy chemical reactions were going on inside it were making it glow.  He was surprised that it didn’t corrode the wooden walls around it, and then he noticed that the walls were almost entirely made of the pulsing, thorny green wood that was choking the entire forest.  The color was much darker here, a sort of deep turquoisey-blue.  They pulsed like the walls of an artery, and John became curious.  He put away the leaf and pulled out his slingshot, taking aim, and shooting a lead ball into a thin veiny vine that looked like its skin was ready to burst.  The lead ball did not break the skin on impact, but an instant later the spot split open, damaged just enough to not be able to handle its internal pressures.  A pressurized burst of water shot out, and struck John in the face so hard it knocked him down.

 

When he came to, the girls were looming over him.  “That was very reckless of you John,” said Roxy.  She had a clothespin on her nose.  Aradia was going to speak next, but then she turned and started dry-heaving over the edge.

“I’m okay, the water in the vines is clean,” said John, trying to breathe only with his mouth.  The smell could honestly have killed a pig, he thought.  “This smell is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever encountered,” he went on, standing up.  “It is like poison, but on fire.  It is the tea they served in the waiting room in hell.  It could probably be used to chemically cook an entire cow, like using lemon on catfish, except that it would be rendered inedible instead of delicious.  Can I have a clothespin?”

Roy shook her head.  “Only had the one on me.  I would give it to you but I want to live.”

John growled, a sound that turned into a sudden coughing fit.  “I honestly think this smell could kill us,” he said.  “ _Do not_ touch the water.”

A bubble the size of a pig rose a few feet in the distance and popped.  The smell worsened by a tiny increment.  “We need some airflow,” said John, producing the breath waker, its cool blue metal gleamed refreshingly in the murky purple light.  The edges of John’s clothes began to ripple in a little wind that spiraled around him.  He opened his hand, letting it ripple between his fingers.  “Good boy,” he muttered.  Then he conducted the Wind’s Requiem.

Nothing happened.

“It’s too much,” said Roxy, looking around.  The chamber they were in was massive, bigger than the one above it.  They may have been below sea-level.  Off in the distance, visible only because of the glowing murk, a tunnel snaked into the wood, going on for who knew how long.  “And what do you mean the water in the vines is clean?”

“It meant what I said,” John replied, just a bit snappier than usual.  “Look!”  He pointed to the hole he’d punched; it was leaking clear, greenish fluid into the murk.

Roxy gasped.  “These creepy vines are detoxing the forest!” she declared.

John raised an eyebrow.  Roxy went on.  “They grow thickest where the water is most disgusting,” she said.  “Then they distribute the clean water to the rest of the forest!”

“Makes sense,” said John.  “We did drink some a while ago and didn’t die.  It wasn’t…purple.”  He looked around the cavern.  “What would happen if they died?”

Roxy rubbed her chin.  “Probably the toxins would go out of control, especially when they started rotting, and the whole forest would die.”

John felt a cold thump rock his body.   He was a pretty imaginative boy, but did not need that imagination to know what kind of ecological disaster that would cause to the whole region.

“What did I miss?” said Aradia, as she wiped a thread of sticky ick from her mouth.  At that point John began to retch.

Roxy grinned down at her two sick friends.  “Really too bad you don’t have a clothespin like I do.”

John stood up and snatched it off her nose, throwing it into the water.  The shadowy forms that swam beneath went into a frenzy.  The kids stared wide-eyed into the depths.  “Fuck this hole,” said John, just as Roxy began to scream.

“Let’s get out of here!” she snarled, which made her choke in the noxious atmosphere.

“We can’t,” said Aradia.  She was looking upwards, morose and forlorn.  “I can’t carry you both, I can barely fly!”

Roxy blinked.  “But you’ve been carrying me this whole time!”

“Gliding,” said Aradia.  “Did you honestly forget?  I’ve been riding the wind downwards with you, not flying.  Definitely not upwards!”

John bit his lip, looking around.  “We keep going,” he said.  “There’s no other way.”

Roxy growled.  “How!?”

John whipped out a card and tapped it, unfurling the sail.  “Like this!”

 

An hour later they were sailing the flower down the tunnel.  It truly was _long,_ but mostly it was slow going.  Roxy was holding one end of the sail while the other two corners of it were tied to a Boko stick they’d (very carefully) fished out of the water and stuck into the flesh of the flower (already beginning to rot in the toxic water).  John was blowing wind into the sail with the Deku Leaf while at the same time holding the breath waker in his hand, a mixture of blue and green magicks rippling around him as he worked.  Aradia was flying ahead, dragging the makeshift ship behind her with her steel whip.  The water had become like sludge this deep into the tree, choked in places by masses of dead insects, and Aradia was struggling.  “Just take us around that bend,” said Roxy, “then come back down and rest!”

“Okay,” Aradia shouted, tugging all the harder at the idea of rest.  After a few minutes, they made it.  A hundred yards down the way was a collection of knots in the sickly green wooden wall that looked almost like a face.  The largest one had been turned into a door.  It was shut, but the sounds of insects could be heard on the other side.  There were more enchanted torches in sconces around the face, and a sort of porch carved into shallow concentric steps.  Huge wooden things like pinecones sat scattered about, seemingly newer than the primitive construction. 

Aradia alit on the flower to rest, and Roxy offered her a drink of their tea from earlier.  She took it gladly, nursing the canteen.  “Soooo,” said Roxy, reclining on a petal, “are you two gonna talk to each other now?”

“Nope,” said John, working the leaf.  The flower lurched forward in the sludge, and then lurched back almost the entire way.  Without the girls’ help, he wouldn’t be getting anywhere anytime soon.

“John sit down and talk with us,” said Roxy, languidly sniffing a handkerchief, and then deciding to breathe through it.

John grumbled and complied, assuming a very cranky lotus position.  Roxy chuckled.  “You look like that mailman.  Okay so, why did you condemn us to slow choking death in a poisonous tunnel?”

“It’s not that bad,” said John, at the same time as Aradia said, “I guess it’s slightly my fault.”

Roxy snapped at her.  “No it isn’t!  John’s being a baby!”

And then twenty yards away, an octorok rose from the depths.  It had been emerging for about a minute now but the sludge was so thick that it was slow going.  The octoroks of the Forbidden Woods lived only in the polluted waters and were much changed from their clean water dwelling cousins across the strait.  The octorok was huge and pale, though stained purple by the murk.  Bioluminescent patterns glowed on its sides, flashing in an angry pattern of blinks and strobes.  It raised four of its tentacles out of the water. The appendages split into three near the ends, like boneless hands, and were covered in rings of long, thick spines all over instead of suction cups; they made it look like a collection of creeping vines covered in tiny sharp mouths.  It opened its mouth and fired off one of its gall-stones, a murky, putrid lump.  It struck the side of the flower, making it spin out of control.  The octorok swelled up as it gathered material to make another one.

But as the flower spun around a second time, John let loose with his slingshot, not having forgotten his vow to kill the first living thing he saw.  Time seemed to slow down as he pulled back the cord, sighted down the arms of the weapon.  He exhaled as he let go, and something unexpected happened.  His breath carried a puff of magic, and the ball ignited with bright blue fire.  The soft lead melted in midair, becoming a deadly spray of molten metal.  The drops sheared through the octorok’s eyes and it shrieked, leaping into the air and flopping down onto the sludge in its death throes.

The flower came to a stand-still, having spun much closer to the octorok due to pure luck.  “Whoa,” muttered Aradia, staring at the dying monster, "that's amazing!"  John just glared at the thing; its spots were still luminescing.  He loaded another lead ball and ignited it.

“Nice shot,” said Roxy, slapping John on the back, breaking his concentration, making him drop the ball and nearly fall into the murk.

“I guess it was pretty amazing, eh Aradia?” he asked, smiling to himself.

“No I mean the octorok is flashing its spots in Dragonroost Island semaphore,” said Aradia, tracing the pattern in the air with a taloned finger.  “Do not interfere,” she said slowly, picking out the words one at a time, “I’m going to kill this island once and for all and free the region of its toxic influence.  Oh Din burn it,” she muttered, kneading her temples.  “The Great Intelligence is actually an idiot.”

John and Roxy snickered.  “I’m pretty sure this settles it,” said John.  “We need to take it out, whatever it is, even if it doesn’t have Miss Paint.”  He cracked his knuckles, then his neck, and then his back.  Roxy looked on in horrified fascination, her eyelid twitching slightly.

“Or we could reason with it,” said Aradia, watching as the octorok’s lights at last blinked out.

“You do that while I kill it,” said John, “it’ll be a good distraction.”  He pointed at Roxy.  “Stretch out the sail first mate!”

She snorted.  “Whatever you say captain, but the three of us need to have a feelings jam when this is all over.”

 

The last ten yards of the journey were done on foot, the sludge having grown into thick, purplish mud.  It was shot through with lines, like burrowing insects, all trailing toward the wooden porch and its door.  John made a mental note to buy a nice pair of boots a the next shop; his sandals had not been made for adventuring and were starting to fall apart, and even whole they wouldn’t have kept this mud out.

The moment John set foot on the first wooden step leading up to the great door; he breathed a sigh of relief at having stable footing again.  The moment immediately after, the dozen or so pinecones exploded.  Out jumped a Bokoblin armed with a machete, the very one from earlier, a swarm of morths, three or four acid-green chuchus, already beginning to morph together into a larger being, two half grown Mothulae, snapping their jaws with a stony clicking, and an ancient Moblin that must have gotten lost in this forest ages ago.  His razor mane had gone white with age and then yellow with filth, and his tusks had rotted down into stumps.  Disturbingly, hanging moss had taken root in his flesh, drooping almost to the floor, and mushrooms were growing out of his back and mouth.  Every single monster here had eyes that glowed a murky orange in the dim light. 

“I…am…working…” said the Moblin through a mouthful of fungi.  It spat and approached slowly, limping.  Its left hand was sheathed in a partially hollowed log.  “This mouth…tastes awful…” it rumbled, hacking up purplish phlegm.  “This forest is toxic.  Let me finish it.  Then we can all leave.”

“The forest is holding back the filth,” said Roxy, striding up to the Moblin, glaring up at its porcine face.  One of the piggy little eyes was swollen shut.  “Purifying this nasty water!  If you kill it, the poison will spread.”

“That’s not possible,” it rumbled, the ‘S’s difficult for its tongue.  [“You’re lyiAAAUGH!” ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCa17qVOTNM) The word transformed into a monstrous bellow and the glow left its eye for just a second; the Moblin took back control of its body and took a swing at Roxy with its makeshift club.  She sidestepped it easily and punched it in the solar plexus.  The Moblin bent, and John whipped the slingshot out of his pocket, empowered a shot, and fired on his exposed head.  The monster bellowed as the mosses and mushrooms caught fire, and then every other monster attacked as one being.

The green chuchu, as big as a man, with a cluster of orange eyes, leapt onto Roxy, forming two pairs of crude hands to grapple her with, while the morths and the Bokoblin went for Aradia, the two Mothulas springing for John.  He ducked under their leaps and they went soaring over him into the muck, then he unslung his hammer and shield.  He spun around to gain momentum and threw the hammer at the Bokoblin before it reached Aradia, smashing its chest, while the troll girl slashed the morths out of the air with her whip.  John ran over to the Bokoblin, sliding into its feet and knocking it over.  He picked up its machete and threw it at the blazing Moblin—

Or rather it fell miserably near the Moblin’s feet.  Wasting no opportunities though, Roxy slammed into the Moblin’s side, using the heat from the fire to make the chuchus separate and fall off her back.  Picking up the machete, she swung it deep into the Moblin’s torso, pivoting the swing into a thrust, and then tearing the blade out of its side, spilling its guts onto the floor.  The Moblin fell like a tree.

One of the Mothulae sprang out of the mud, jaws snapping, and Roxy whipped her rod out of her belt and struck the insect between its mandibles.  It disappeared in a burst of pink light and dark colored panels.  On the other side of the battlefield, Aradia was whipping off the legs of the second Mothula.  There were a dozen morths in her wooly hair but she seemed not to mind.  “Guess that settles it,” said Roxy, blowing on the end of her rod and stabbing the machete into the floor.

A horde of octoroks came into view.  Some emerged far out into the tunnel where the water was much thinner, but the rest came climbing along the thorny walls, scuttling and grappling with their horribly spiky tentacles like nightmare spiders.  They looked much bigger than the one they’d fought earlier, or perhaps they just hadn’t noticed how huge they were.  A dozen lumpy, purplish gall-stones slammed against the floor, shattering on impact into razor sharp shards.  “Oh boy, more killing,” Aradia muttered, twisting her lips.  A fully grown Mothula came screaming around the bend, spewing fire and morth eggs.

Roxy growled in frustration, pulling up the machete; the tip broke off in the wood.  “John, just get on with it!” she shouted, tossing him the card with the pictobox.  John barely fumbled as he caught it, and then he tried the door; it was latched from the other side.  He slammed his hammer into the door, once, twice, three times, and it burst open on the fourth.  He ran inside just as Roxy unleashed a magical blast, the sound ringing in his ears as he padded down the wooden hall.

 

It narrowed as he followed it, constricting into a crude tunnel of pulsing vines, the thorns creeping towards him so he had to contort his body in unnatural ways.  They were much thinner and sharper, their tips fading to red.  The walls, beating like a heartbeat, were straight up indigo now, not green at all.  John was breathing hard, his claustrophobia setting in again, but the end was in sight, so he pushed himself through.

The tunnel opened into a chamber shaped like a bell.  A battle was raging inside.  A gargantuan flower hung from the ceiling, electric blue with violet accents, erupting with violently yellow pollen from its anthers.  It twitched and snarled like an animal, swinging its huge, barbed tendrils, thick as tree-trunks, at the swarm of monsters below.  Insects and Moblins shattered under its blows, painting the floor with gore.  In their midst was a Carapacian woman, short and plump, blank and smooth-featured like John remembered them being in his travels.  She wore a blue and green top and a comfortable looking skirt.  Her eyes however, were glowing orange; he could see each individual facet.

[Next to her was male troll. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZmG8q5z1XE) He was wearing a coat sewn from blue leaves with a guitar slung across his back.  His thick black hair was shaved on the sides, and his ears were broad and leaf-shaped like a cow’s.  His mouth was full of narrow fangs that glinted like needles, and he had the broad curved horns of a prized bull.  He held a crude lance made of a dried vine, a drill-like spiral of yellow wood studded with thorns.  Out of everything in the chamber, he was the only living creature whose eyes were not glowing orange.  He turned. 

John scowled, his ears perking up as high as they could go.  “It’s you then?  It’s been you the whole time?  Some random troll I’ve never met before?!  Do you even have _any idea what you’re doing?!”_   By the end of it he was screaming at the troll.  He dropped his shield on the ground, holding his hammer in one hand, ready to pummel the other boy into a paste.

At the same time, the troll began to rant at him, his ears falling low.  “You and your dumb friends have been bugging me all day, and, I am not going to let you keep doing it.  I’m gonna finish you off and be the hero, if that’s alright with you, and even if it’s not you’ll be dead, so whatever.  It was just a courtesy, and now I get to beat you up.”  He aimed down the shaft of his lance, stamped the ground, and charged at John.

John, imitating him, charged right back, swinging his hammer like a madman.  It connected by pure chance with the end of the troll’s lance, knocking him off balance.  The tip of the lance dug into the ground and the troll was able to pivot on the point of it just in time to dodge a vicious hammer blow.  The hammerhead struck the ground and John himself lost balance.  The troll elbowed him in the back and John almost fell down.

His solution was to drop the hammer, spin on his heel, and punch the troll right in the face.  The troll staggered, dropping his lance.  John punched him again with the other hand, and let out a flurry of punches onto the poor troll's face until he accidentally struck his horn.  Something in his fist crunched and jumped back, hissing in pain.

The troll, meanwhile, nearly fell over.  Troll horns are in fact very sensitive, full of nerve endings that help them balance.  The blow made him feel dizzy and set his stomach reeling.

John looked up first and noticed his foe’s discomfort.  He rushed the troll, who just barely managed to sidestep out of the way.  He unslung his guitar and began to play, [plucking the strings with a pick made of pale blue metal.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z4ctxDKCVM)

“What are you gonna do, sing John Mayer songs at me until I cry?!” John barked.  He did not notice the whirling patterns on the cold blue pick, like clouds or winds made solid, nor that the guitar appeared to have been grown from a single flowering plant, its woody green stem comprising the neck, and its brilliant bronze leaf pod the resonating chamber.  He didn’t see the rings glittering on the troll’s fingers, each of them a Carapatian artifact that boosted his powers immensely.  John did not see these things, only that his enemy was being ridiculous, as if _mocking_ him, and he charged the troll again, screaming “ _I’m gonna kill you until you die!”_

He certainly took the time to notice those things, however, after a swirling gust of blue-tinted wind slammed into his chest and threw him clear across the room.

The troll looked around himself, breathing hard.  “Oh no, no no no!” he shouted.  His monsters had lost his direction and were being massacred by the devil-flower.  Miss Paint, his new friend, had fled from the room screaming; he just barely caught sight of her rear as she scampered out the tunnel.  The troll snarled.  “Um, yeah! You better run!  I don’t even need you anyway!  I can handle the Kale Demos myself!”

John hurled the smoldering corpse of a Mothula at him, and the troll just barely parried it with his guitar.  The insect body crumbled in two halves on either side of him, just to reveal John a foot from his face.  John landed a vicious uppercut that threw the troll to the ground.  Picking up the Mothula’s mandible, he prepared to finish the troll off.  “Before I kill you,” said John, “you’re gonna tell me your na—”

He was then launched all the way to the ceiling by another burst of wind.  The troll leapt to his feet and began to play again, launching John between the massive barbed roots of the devil-flower.  He prepared a face-melting solo that would finish them both off, the wind in the room howling along at incredible speeds, the air crackling with static electricity.  “It’s Tavros, remember it because you’ll be screaming it later!” he said, just as he was about to play the killing chord.  He flushed slightly.  “Because I’m gonna be kicking your ass I mean, and not like, anything sexual…anyway I am this generation’s Breath Waker and I am gonna wreck your shit—”

Tavros was himself slammed off his feet by a meaty fist of air as John conducted winds around himself.   The disorderly howls became sweet saturnine singing, a cosmic chorus in tune with the music of the spheres.  His eyes glinted coldly behind his glasses, he was walking on air, sliding on the breeze like a dancer, the breath waker poised like a weapon.  “So you’re a liar and an idiot,” said John.  “I’m the Breath Waker.  It’s me who’s going to gather the pearls, and me who’s going to make way for the Hero.  You’re just an idiot who got lucky!  Where’d you get that pick huh, Beedle sells those now?”  He aimed the breath waker like a dagger.  [“Bad dog,” he whispered into the wind.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD2TLTtyfDE)

It surged around him, _through_ him, and threw Tavros off his feet.  The wind howled through the narrow tunnel, knocking the girls (all three of them) off their feet,  tearing the wings off Mothulae, extinguishing fired, and turning the top of the river of sludge into a fine purple mist.  It roared down the tunnel, acquiring strength as it acquire debris, bursting up through the thorny chasm, roaring though the rooms and hollows of the tree.  Not an inch of the great tree was untouched by the wind.  Monsters were scoured by the acidic mist, torn by the slashing winds, shocked by the gathering static, and that hideous stench was carried up and outward, and then, at last, the wind streamed through the precious few exits in the tree’s canopy.  The blue gales rose above the Forbidden Woods, coalescing together in one great blue cloud.  For an instant, all was still.  And then the air was split by electricity, each bolt as pure and blue as the sky, ripping through the cloud but never once making landfall, until the gathered toxicity was completely destroyed, leaving nothing but the scent of lightning and petrichor.

 

The girls found him a few minutes later, crouching over Tavros’s prone body, slugging him in the chest.  “How did you do that and _oh sweet green Farore John no!”_ shouted Roxy, pointing at Tavros. “Did you just murder that guy!?”

John snorted.  “I really should have, but no.  He was playing some song I’d never heard before and I played a counterpoint to the song on the breath waker.  I just made it up as I went along, and the two songs clashed together and did some crazy shit because of magic. Anyway, now I feel bad about beating him up so I’m trying to resuscitate him.”  His fist came down on the troll’s chest once more, and Tavros coughed up a wad of purple phlegm, sitting bolt upright and smacking his head into John’s.  John punched him out again.  “Din, Nayru and Farore,” he muttered, standing up, rubbing his knuckles.  “You resuscitate a guy and what does he do?”  John threw Tavros into a fireman carry, wincing as his massive horns poked him in the lower back.

The Kale Demos shrieked, its stamen peeking out from between its petals.  It looked a bit like a Boko Baba, but much more fabulous.  “Should I feed him to it?” John wondered aloud.  The girls goggled.

“No,” he decided, “he’s been punished enough.”  Bowing slightly to the flower, he added, “I’ll take him off your hands, er, tentacles, er, _clawed tendrils,_ don’t worry.”  The devil-flower clucked contentedly and retreated into its petals, settling down on the floor for the first time in a long time.

“And what is that thing?” asked Roxy, staring at the gigantic bloom.  “It’s gorgeous.”

“Kale Demos,” gasped Aradia.  “The first flower that grows in an area that’s been hit by an ecological disaster.  Sometimes little blossoms sprout on the side of Dragonroost after an eruption, but I’ve never seen one that big though!” 

A gentle breeze had been blowing this whole time, pushing around luminescent green pollen and filling the room with a refreshing light.  Now it coalesced in the center like a glowing green whirlwind.  The forbidden Woods was letting them go.

One by one they stepped into the light, and then they were gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: These last couple chapters have just shot out of me like a ruptured hernia. John is, if you recall, quite violent when cranky. He even forgets he has a hammer sometimes, as seen when he fought Caliborn. I promise this romance stuff will be handled quickly and not degenerate into some kind of love triangle. Next time, we attend a party! (and deal with some kind of love triangle).


	19. Breathless

**“You must stay for the New Year’s ceremony,”** said the Deku King, voice as deep as the foundations of the Earth.  **“The Pearl must be present for the ceremony, but when the time has passed I will give it to you.”**

John bowed respectfully, slightly miffed at having to wait _again_.  Carapacian New Year fell in the middle of December this year, but time was still running down; there was now less than three weeks until Jade would be thrown from the top of the Forsaken Fortress.  “My companions and I will gladly stay for as long as we must,” he said, lying. 

The Deku King nodded, as if it were really a choice.  **“Do not look so glum, Wind Waker,”** he boomed, **“you have free reign to visit anywhere in my city, and a three day festival begins at sundown.  We are not so poor a tribe that one night and day here will do you ill.”**   The wooden giant crooked a wooden finger, and lily pad floated across the water, carrying two thick-bodied Carapacians, each lugging jars of rupees.  All three of the children’s eyes widened.  John supposed he had to kill time somehow.

 

John looked out the window of the shop somewhere on the fifth level of the Carapacian city, wishing that time would kill him instead.  Roxy had decided the best possible way to spend their money had been to go clothes shopping.  She wasn’t entirely wrong; they’d all been wearing the same outfits for days, and John’s gear was especially unsuited to all the terrains and environments he’d had to traverse.  He’d even complained about his sandals back in the Forbidden Woods.  He thought he’d been just thinking…loudly.

The view was lovely.  Down below in the King’s pond, massive lily pads were being decked out with colorful tents and pavilions, home to tonight’s attractions.  Smaller lily pads were being set with lanterns to light the festivities; big round things woven from spider silk and huge colorful Deku Leaves.  Winged Carapacians were stringing yet more lanterns from the Deku King’s branches and other high reaches, linking his majesty to the rest of his realm with chains of light.  The sun was far from setting however, and there were many rupees in the jars still.

“Hey John,” said Roxy, bringing him back to the present.  “Does this match my new machete?”  He turned away from the teardrop shaped doorway and looked at her.  His jaw immediately dropped.  Roxy was wearing a lovely purple dress, dark as wine and the night sky, glimmering vaguely pink and silver in the light.  It was short and low cut, with slim black boots that went up past her knees and black gloves that reached her elbows.  The neckline was low and a layer of material folded over her chest and shoulders, revealing a rich burgundy color.

John didn’t notice any of that because she was holding her machete, and the way it gleamed in the daylight was stunning.  “Roxy,” he said, jaw trembling slightly. She smiled dangerously.  “Can I see that machete real quick?”

She frowned.  “My dress is not that bad,” she said.

“No,” said John, “the machete!  It might be valuable!”

She raised an eyebrow, nearly invisible on her pale skin, and handed it over.

John whistled as he felt the weight.  Rubbing the blade, he was able to scrape loose some of the accumulated oxygenation and grime, revealing a startling blue.  The metal was patterned like Damascus, but unlike Damascus the pattern was circles and ovals of varying sizes, all slightly deeper in color than the surrounding metal.  “Wow,” said John, eyes dewy as if overcome with beauty, “this is almost completely pure Azurine.”

“What’s Azurine?” asked Roxy, still slightly upset that he had not complimented her.

“An incredibly rare metal,” John said, turning the edge of the blade away from him and flexing it.  “Lots of legendary weapons are made with it.”

Roxy whooped, pumping her fist.  “So this is a legendary weapon!?” she asked, eyeing the piece hungrily.  “Did like, Will Smith kill the Clockwork Queen with it?”

John chuckled.  “No, it’s a piece of shit and the smith’s sign is from last year.”  Roxy’s face fell.  “Whoever it was had no skill,” John went on, ignoring her plight.  “Look at this,” he said, pointing at a thick scar-like welding mark.  “He just hammered out some plates of the stuff and shittily spot-welded them into a sword shape in hopes that the metal itself would make the shoddy work usable.” 

He took a few practice swings and accidently hacked halfway through a mannequin craved from the living wood.  The store owner glared at him with beady bug eyes.  “We’ll pay!” Roxy said, smiling nervously and holding up her hands defensively as John planted a foot in the side of the mannequin and yanked the machete out with all his might.  There was a nasty splintering sound, and John was left holding half a machete.

The shopkeep growled.  The mannequin's outfit fell to the floor, and an instant later the mannequin itself collapsed.

 

John gingerly held the two pieces of the broken weapon as he descended to the city floor, walking along a gently spiraling path that snaked its way up the pale wooden walls.  The sun was still visible up ahead, but would not be for much longer.

There was a pool at the foot of the path that just barely went up past his ankles; it was one of the few places where the sun hit directly.  Some Carapacian kids, all shapes and sizes, all looking like masked, winged trees, were playing a game of catch in it, sending up sprays of water that glimmered silver in the sun, making the pool explode into shimmering ripples when they beat their leafy wings for balance.  John watched for a moment, transfixed.  Their hard, segmented forms had always seemed to him more like architecture than organism, and he’d never really imagined they could be graceful.   They weren’t quite that, even now, but there was a sort of heavy elegance to their movements, as if every movement of the game had been predetermined long ago, and they were merely following the steps to a dance that had been laid out for them.

He followed the arc of the thing they were throwing, a yellow blur.  A grey hand with sharp red talons reached up and snatched it out of the air.  Aradia whooped, fluttering around the pool with her butterfly wings.  John bit his lip; he’d hoped to avoid her.  She’d gotten out of the shopping trip by saying she wanted to check out some early Carapacian artworks in the lower levels; clearly she was done.  He hadn’t seen her because by sheer chance the tallest Carapacians had stood between her and him until now.  He sidled around the edge of the game, trying not to look too much at anyone lest they felt his gaze.  But still, he couldn’t just _not_ look at Aradia.  She was definitely what he would call beautiful, with her pouty red lips and soft round face.  Along with Roxy and Dave, she was one of the strongest people he knew, and that appealed to him greatly.  Watching her for a second as she jumped and threw the object was poetry in motion.  Time slowed down, as if to show off how her muscles bunched up and let loose like bowstrings, her glorious hair bouncing, letting out a trollish war cry as a smile split her face.

And yet, just as much as he liked looking at her (and there was no denying that any longer) he was just as transfixed by the object in her hands.  Almost comically large, built for Carapacians whose sizes were as variable as any math problem, it was a kind of bent yellow stick, flat enough to scythe through the air and carve a curving path back to the thrower if it went uncaught and unmolested.  She was too fast for the Carapacians, always catching it as it returned to her almost before they began reaching for it.  That must be a boomerang; he’d heard of them but never seen them in action.  It gave John an idea.

 

He asked around and made his way to the forge.  It was deep below the city, a cavern in the lump of rock the tree above had taken root in long ago.  Some kind of mechanical ventilation system thrummed as he descended the stairs.  He whistled when he saw the workshop.

There were a dozen individual forges equipped with blast furnaces big enough to stand in.  There were anvils as large as surgical slabs, lathes big enough to turn entire logs, and every foot of every wall was equipped with tools, hammers and tongs and grindstones and diamond edges saws of all shapes and sizes, all carefully labeled.

At the moment only two gigantic Carapacians were at work down here.  Their heads nearly brushed the ceiling, and unlike the rest of them up above, these men were like living castles.  Their skins were hard and grey, patterned to look like bricks, and their heads were cylindrical, lacking chins or even necks, just fading into the architecture of the chest and shoulders, and topped with ramparts.  Each was taking it in turns to pound a huge metal bar into shape with their left arm; the forearm swelled into a gigantic club of black stone instead of a hand.  Their right arms ended in huge ham-like hands; their finger rings wore simple nails of what looked like blued steel, bent into circles.

Only one other forge was still lit.  “Can I use this?” John asked, pointing at the thing.  “I’d rather not have to stoke one of these myself.”  They seemed not to have heard them, though to be fair he did not ask very loudly.  Taking that as a yes, he laid down the machete on an anvil.  He chose a much more reasonably sized portable anvil from the wall to serve as a table, and a gleaming saw that was just right for him.  He would need to break the machete down and smelt the metal into ingots to do what he needed, starting from the ground up as it were.  He sighed contentedly and got to work.

 

When he emerged from the forge it was almost sunset, though the forest had gone dark hours ago.  Fireflies flit through the trees and over the waters, and the beautiful floral lanterns had been lit.  He carried a dozen daggers in his hands, all sheathed in tin scabbards and hooked onto a belt of braided leather.  He hadn’t had time to make them himself, but one of the lumbering Carapacian smiths had made the scabbards from leaf-shaped plates riveted together while the other created the belt, both of them much kinder than they could express in their current forms. 

Each dagger was slightly shorter than John’s forearm, or more accurately had been forged from a bar about that size.  He’d given each blade a wicked curve that sharpened the farther along it went and broadened near the tip, making it excellent for chopping despite the small size.  The hilts had an oval profile rather than a round one, and he’d crosshatched them extensively to lend a good grip.  In general shape, it looked a bit like the boomerang he’d seen Aradia play with.  He’d given one an experimental toss; they had an excellent spin, though a tendency to bounce off hard targets and keep spinning who knew where.  Roxy would be happy, as long as he warned her about that quirk.

He decided to hide them in one of the rooms they’d been lent until tomorrow, to surprise her, and cut through a copse of small silvery trees to make for the ramp.  Roxy and Aradia were waiting for him inside.  “Din, Nayru, and Farore!” Roxy shouted, startling John so much he dropped the belt.  “It’s almost time for the opening ceremony and you’re _covered in soot!”_

John looked down at himself; he really was.  His good old lobster shirt was indistinguishable from a blackened rag, and his pants, once a cheerful orange, were some kind of awful yellow-brown, smeared with black along the front.  His hands looked charred, and he shuddered to think about his face. 

In comparison, the girls were dressed in beautiful robes.  They had huge, voluminous sleeves and a straight profile that left them both looking very delicate.  Roxy’s was colored like the dress from earlier, purple and blue, printed with pink four-pointed stars.  A huge broad sash secured the robe in front of her with a gigantic black bow.  She wore a fascinator in her short hair shaped like a fan, printed with pink, four-eyed cats.  Aradia’s robe was acid-green and embroidered with vines in a slightly deeper color, a subtle difference that teased the eye.  Her sash was violently red, the bow secured on the left side with the help of a candy-striped rope.  John almost audibly gasped at her hair; it had been tamed into bun secured with two thin, red needles.  It had been relentlessly brushed into near-straightness, leaving her with bangs, and two free flowing wavy locks that drizzled onto her shoulders like molasses.  John felt like a bum.  “We need to dress you,” said Roxy.  “Rae-Rae, hold him down!”

Aradia saluted.  “Yes ma’am!”

 

John had apparently been completely useless at removing his own clothes, so Roxy sat on his chest while Aradia went to fetch water, John being too incompetent to wash himself.  Tonight’s outfit was lying right next to his head; a deep blue robe with pale blue horizontal stripes, each containing a simple wave pattern in white.  There were teal accents at the cuffs and hem.  “Okay John, I am not actually mad at you,” she said.  Looking up through the canopy at a spattering of stars, she added, “Although we really _do_ need to hurry.”  She looked over her shoulder to where Aradia had gone, ears poking straight to the sides.  “That ancient Hylian stone tablet I faked for her won’t keep her occupied _too_ long once she realizes it’s a dirty limerick.” 

Her gaze wandered over to the jumbled pile of blue metal and leather, and she gasped.  “No way!” she said, covering her mouth.  “Are those _mine?”_

John nodded sheepishly.  “I had kinda wanted to surprise you in the morning but then his happened,” he said, wiggling vaguely to indicate that she was sitting on his chest.

Roxy reached over as far as she could, and then realized that she wouldn’t be able to pick up the belt without getting up.  John smiled in triumph.

She snapped her fingers, and the belt de-materialized into a swarm of black panels, re-materializing in Roxy’s hands.  He frowned.

“These are so beautiful,” she said wistfully, drawing a dagger.  She pressed the flat of the blade to her chest, “thank you,” she said, with such sincerity that it made John melt a little.  Unfortunately letting his guard down loosened the muscles in his abdomen and caused her weight to resettle in a much less comfortable way.

“It was nothing,” he said.  “Just a little something to prevent you from sitting on me in the future.” All this talk led to a slight coughing fit, his his throat stinging from time spent working the forge.

“It won’t work,” said Roxy, sticking out her tongue and winking a big pink eye.  She threw the dagger with a sideways swing of her arm, and it arced through the air, curving just like the boomerang had, and struck fast in the dead center of a knot in a nearby tree.

“They ricochet when they hit something they can’t cut,” John warned.

“That’s fucking badass,” shouted Roxy, leaning over John’s head and shaking him.  Then, she leaned in even closer, and kissed him on the corner of the mouth.  She giggled when she pulled back, but her eyes had been half-lidded, and the touch of her lips as delicate as a butterfly’s.

John’s face became incredibly hot.  “What is your deal?” he growled, once again more out of hoarseness from the heat of the forge than anything.

Roxy laid a hand on his cheek.  “You asked Aradia to be your girlfriend back in the Forbidden Woods,” she said.

He really wished he was dead, or that he’d at least kept it all to himself.  Still, he couldn’t run from it anymore.  “Before we go on, I have something to say,” Roxy intoned, her voice small, her rose-pink ears drooping.  _“I really like you too John,”_ she blathered, almost too fast to hear.  John noticed that Roxy didn’t really blush when she was sober and healthy; there were the barest pink spots on her cheeks, so light he’d not have noticed if he hadn’t been looking for it, wanting her embarrassment to match his own.  She leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth again, in the exact same spot, but she lingered this time, and her mouth was just slightly open.  John felt her breath on him, and it made him shiver despite its warmth.

“I’m really flattered,” he said, voice shuddering.  “That’s really, uh, really cool.  I don’t think I can, you know, date you and stuff right now though…” he trailed off as she started to laugh.  It was just slightly forced, and just slightly due to actual humor.  Mostly she laughed because of the ridiculousness of the situation, being rejected by a sooty loser that she was actively sitting on.

“I wasn’t asking you out,” she assured, ears trembling as much as her voice was.  “I know how you feel about me.  I just didn’t want you to ask me in like ten years, ‘ _why didn’t you tell me back then?’_   I needed to be completely honest with you so you wouldn’t doubt my intentions!”  She reached up and wiped a few beads of sweat off her brow, flicking them onto the grass.  There was soil in the Forest Haven; the trees here were not completely dependent on the host.

“Ten years,” she said whimsically, looking up at the stars.  At this time of year the nebula Skaia was visible moving across the sky.  John had often heard of it called Heaven.  “When Caliborn is defeated and we’re all happily married, heh.”

After a minute, John coughed, “each of us to people we love.”  The bit of air he’d just expelled wasn’t coming back.

Roxy nodded stiffly.  “Yes.”  She sat in silence for a second, shifting her weight just slightly and making John go ‘oof’.  “Totally didn’t mean the three of us marrying each other or something.  Anyway, Aradia doesn’t know what I’m about to tell you next because she would never agree to it, but she is actually pretty crazy about you too…just not how you want.”

John quirked his eyebrow.  “What does that even mean?” he asked testily.  “I don’t need to be let down easy, if she just wants to be friends then we can be just friends!  I’ll just hold my tongue and move on.”

Roxy shook her head.  “What do you know about troll romance?”

John made a noncommittal noise to explain that he knew it was a thing that existed, but not one that he knew anything _about_.  His lungs were starting to hurt.

Roxy smacked him, but gently.  “Well basically,” she said, “ever since you papped her back at The Forge—”

“Papped?” John interrupted.  Roxy smacked him with her cupped hand, not nearly hard enough to hurt but hard enough to make a sound, and removed it with a slight caress of the fingertips, before doing it again.  “That John, that’s a pap.  Trolls have some pretty sensitive nerves in their cheeks.  Their skin’s a bit tougher than ours so they won’t be triggered by accident but a light smack like that will do it.  When the nerves are triggered, they get calmed down like _fuck_.  It’s like getting high without the drugs, and only for a second.  Repeated papping can reduce a troll to a figurative puddle of mush.”  She leaned in and whispered in his ear; “And you are really fucking good apparently,” she giggled. 

“Touch her face and try to sound like the ocean,” said John, eyes widening as he quoted Karkat’s long ago advice.

Roxy chortled.  “Aradia fucking saw _the stars_ man.  She felt like if blue Nayru herself had reached down from space and papped her!” she was cackling now; the whole while her ears had ben pricking back up elatedly, forgetting their former droopiness.  John felt only increasingly embarrassed, and his own ears were lying flat on the grass, occasionally twitching at an insect.  He really had meant to kiss her that day, because it was either that or kill her, which he did not want to do at all, but she’d stopped her rampage seemingly without him doing anything.  Yet the idea of the kiss remained.

Roxy was still talking.  “—obably a fuckin’ dynamo in bed, hehe,” she said.  With a cough, as if remembering where she was sitting (and grinding her hips just slightly) she returned to the subject.  “But yeah, you’ve really got her pale humors in a bunch, _if you know what I mean_ , and if you do, tell me, because I barely understand it.  _Kidding_ , of _course_ , but basically in troll culture there is an entire form of romance based around that,” she said, papping his face again, “just you being a great friend to her and a calming force in her life, and showing it by doing paps and sounding like the ocean, and maybe there’s kissing too sometimes, I don’t know you’d have to ask her, but it’s definitely not _nothing_ , and it’s not letting you down easy with some fakey made up relationship.  So when she gets back here and starts scrubbing all this black shit off your face—” Roxy took a moment to start at her hand, which was unfortunately smothered with black shit.  She carefully rubbed it onto the grass.  “When that happens, if you ask to be her moirail, maybe the two of you can find a little happiness that way.”

Aradia walked back into the clearing holding two huge ceramic jars.  “Did you know that ancient Hylians liked dirty limericks?” she asked as she set the jugs gown next to John.  “You were very kind to write a Hylian style limerick for me.  You can get off him now Roxy, he looks pacified.”

 

After a bit of a struggle to get John’s robe on (“No John you fold the right side across— _not so much_ boys need to show off a little bit of chest hehehe.  Now just tie a bow.  No a good bow like this.  And flip it—what do you mean it doesn’t matter if no one sees it?   _I_ saw it and that’s what matters!  I will go to my grave knowing you did a bad job on that bow that no one else saw.  And here’s another bow on the other side.  No you don’t get a big one, that’s for girls, just two small ones.  Because _aesthetic_ John, now put on these fucking awkward wooden sandals if you think you can handle doing it yourself!”), the girls each took one of his arms and dragged him out of the copse and to the pond.  He was not entirely comfortable with their proximity.  He’d had enough trouble coming to terms with being rejected by Aradia, but now Roxy was in love with him too (or was he being narcissistic to apply such a strong word?  She did kiss him twice), and he was very conscious of the way her fingertips tapped on his forearm.  He looked over at her cautiously.  She smiled wide, her lips as black and shiny as ever, and then began making wild eye movements, as if signaling him to stop looking at her and start looking at Aradia, and possibly put the pale moves on her if need be (whatever those moves might actually entail).  He ignored her.

They stepped onto a lily pad as big as a boat, and it floated out across the water of its own volition into the festival.  They were among the last to arrive, though they saw a good dozen families catch lily pads after them, and a few loners who were content to just fly or alight on the roofs of the stalls selling food and games.  The smell of caramel corn, molasses, and fried anything on a stick suffused the permanently herbal scented air, making the atmosphere delicious.  John’s stomach rumbled.  “After this,” Roxy whispered.  She mouthed, “with your new moirail,” right after, and John ignored her, hard to do with the exaggerated winks she threw his way.

A group of musicians stood on a lily pad directly in front of the Deku King, tuning their instruments.  Each was equipped with a coral ring that altered their appearance into yet another form that he’d never seen before.  They seemed to be shaped from different materials, wood and shell and metal, but much shapelier than their tree forms and more elegant than their smithy forms.  Each had a set of what looked like exhaust ports along their ribs, arms and thighs. One, incredibly pale, had inserted a complicated series of curved Deku wood pipes, all ending in different sized bells, creating an array of woodwind from piccolo to an awe-inspiring bass flute.  His twin, nearly identical but for his pitch black exoskeleton, had done the same with brass tubing, turning himself into some kind of cannon-bombardment made of sousaphones.  Their chests swelled and contracted impressively as they pumped air from their mouths and vents—they all had powerful chests, unplated on the sides to allow for greater expansion of their lungs, surprisingly human-looking skin stretching to a pale thinness with each puff.  One wispy female had grown long strands of wiry hair, each strand tied to a heavy weight. She gently caressed them with fingers like tiny mallets, producing a sound not unlike a harpsichord.  Her own, light-shelled twin had long curved claws on her fingertips, with wire string between them.  She scraped them along her hair, making it whine like a violin.

Miss Paint stood on a podium behind the band, her new form made of pink shells and coral that darkened as it went down, with a crown of pink-gold fronds that looked a bit like hair from this distance.  She wore a flowing black dress that left her shoulders bare, seemingly stitched with the burning green of Farore’s light, and spangled with green embers that burned like tiny stars.  One side was slit up to the hip, showing off the vents on her pale legs, plated with blue and purple shell that was patterned like abalones. John twitched slightly as he noticed how well the dress clung to her figure, partly just surprised at the idea of a Carapacian even _having_ a figure.  The girls still squeezed his arms a bit painfully.  But really, he’d only been thinking about the human conception of beauty.  That was all.

The band seemed ready to start, but they didn’t, apparently waiting for some cue.  John heard a splash, and saw some water rise into the air where somebody had jumped into the pond.  The water all around rippled, but the gathered mass of Carapacians hid the cause from view.  He heard someone running through the water, muttering and swearing to himself.  A floating lantern spun into view around the crowd, going so fast it almost capsized.  Whatever it was, it was heading to the stage.  Miss Paint, the only one with free hands, descended her podium and walked to the edge of their lily, stretching out a hand.  She pulled up a sopping wet Tavros, leaf guitar and wind waker pick in hand.

John tensed, but the girls held him firm again.  “Don’t murder that guy,” Roxy hissed.  “At the _fucking_ New Year’s ceremony?  Are you crazy?”

“Why isn’t he in…a dungeon or something?” John whisper-shouted, irritating the closest Carapacians. “Didn’t he take control of Miss Paint?  And steal a bunch of rings?  Don’t they cut your hand off for that?”

Aradia shook her head.  “I heard earlier today from some boys I was playing with.  He found those rings while he was exploring the Forbidden Woods, and Miss Paint wanted to help him but felt she was too cowardly, so he took control to help her along.”

“Can’t he have been making her _think_ that?” said John, glaring at Tavros.  For his part, the troll boy, felt a pricking on the back of his neck and stumbled, nearly falling back into the water.

“Nope,” said Aradia, not even considering it.  “A powerful blueblood with a ton of practice could probably do it, but bronzebloods like him can only control physical functions, not emotions or thoughts.”  John nodded stiffly, still glaring at the troll.  He muttered something about Tavros not even bothering to dress up for the performance, still wearing his blue leaf-sewn coat.

The troll took a few seconds to tune his instruments, [and the band began to play.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ6g1wgKUoU)  Miss Paint spread her arms, and the lily pad rose, spinning slowly upwards, lifted up by a gigantic root.  Water sluiced off the sides, dousing the closest audience members.  Tavros looked a little bit like he was going to vomit.  Miss Paint began to speak, her voice rich and sweet like honey.  “On the third day,” she intoned, eyes closed in recital, “The Goddess of Courage Farore, with her rich soul, breathed life into all things, creating those which would uphold the law of Nayru.”  The music gleamed in the air like a revelation.  The forest fireflies began to swarm, little balls of rainbow, but strongest in green and gold, swirling all around the festival, a whirlwind of light.

“Thus, the first day of the New Year is her day,” Miss Paint spoke, a melody rising in her throat, fighting to get out.  But it was not yet time.  “For it was the first day of life on this planet, the last day before the goddesses returned to their home in Skaia—” here she pointed her finger straight up, to the little blue and white nebula; they knew it would be high in the sky even if it was hidden by the canopy—“and the day of the founding of the sacred Triforce.”  The music was swelling, not in triumph, but like the drawing of a breath.  The revelation was preparing to be given, the oracle drawing strength, and the courage to speak truth to her people.  Then, the music stopped, the breath held.  A few beats sounded, the sound of the oracle’s heartbeat, trying to make the moments between each beat last forever.  But they cannot, and she must speak.  Miss Paint opened her eyes, now glowing yellow-green with the fire of the goddess, and the children almost jumped back.

Miss Paint began to sing.

 

_In vento cogitatio, spirat in vento!_

_E vacuo lux elucet, lux e vacuo!_

_E somno somnia cre'ta, somnia e somno!_

_In clara umbra creatum versat!_

_In vento spiritus flat, spiritus in vento!_

_In fusco lumen ignescit, lumen in fusco!_

_E somnis verita nata est verita nata!_

_E nihil omnia cre'ta sunt omnia create!_

_Pel Amar vinya-onant!_

_Feä raniel vilyadessë sira!_

_Lindelë sama calad!_

_Oloriello illuvë onant!_

_Ëa!_

As she sang, the gentle sounds of a piccolo streamed from her vents, visible in the air as a jade wind, the light of the goddess.  She was like a living pipe organ that had the voice of a woman.  Shrouded in a sparking emerald veil of her own making, the Carapacian woman sang in counterpoint with herself.

John broke free of the girls’ grips on his arms.  He took Aradia by the shoulders, and looked into her eyes.  With just a moment’s hesitation, he smiled and cupped her cheek, papping her gently, eliciting a gasp of pleasure.  He leaned in and whispered in her ear, and she whispered back.  Roxy whooped with pride; the music was too loud for anyone to hear.

Miss Paint floated into the air, dress rippling like a black waterfall.  She spoke in three voices, eyes blazing like green suns, and everyone there felt the presence of the Goddess of Courage.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: like nearly every chapter of every fic I have ever written, this was originally going to be longer. Then it got bigger and got out of control and I ended up cutting some things, to be used in the next chapter, like I always do. I swear to God, The Thief of Prospit was gonna be a one-shot but it wound up being my first complete novel.  
> I don’t want to go the traditional path of the love triangle; I think a conflict of interests in romance between multiple parties can be interesting but it’s almost always just “WHICH ONE WILL MAIN CHARACTER CHOOOOOOSE!?!?!?!” and that’s dull. John isn’t gonna ‘choose’ anyone and things will resolve themselves as naturally as possible. So from this point forward, while there will be fluff between this main threesome, there will be no dumb drama. Thus saith the Lord.  
> The boomerang daggers are basically an insane flight of fancy that would certainly never work. But why do the boomerangs in Zelda cut things, and bounce from target to target and all other kinds of things? I decided magical mythril metals were the only way.  
> Yo the other day I was thinking “boy I sure do ship John and Aradia! …but why is that?” There’s a reason of some kind for almost all of my ships other than just ‘they would go well together’. And then it hit me! Once again I must refer you to rezi, my much more talented and popular internet sister, whose fan-adventure Starsignstuck was the origin of this beautiful ship. May she update it soon.  
> Part of the inspiration for my treatment of the Carapacians as shape-shifters, or rather form-shifters, comes from the Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance in which an original fantasy race of his (which incidentally are humanoids with carapaces) is able to change shape by binding with nature spirits, though only certain kinds work, and will create different forms depending on the spirit. The various forms include work-form, war-form, art-form, nimble-form, and mating-form. All such forms do indeed exist among my version of the Carapacians, and I will try to showcase all of them somehow. I have alluded to it in vague ways throughout the fic, but since it doesn’t really matter, Carapacians punish criminals by chopping off their ring hand, robbing them of their forms, and banishing them, hence Jack’s hook whenever we see it.  
> I wonder why they did that? :O  
> Next chapter, we learn a little bit more about Tavros before the Tentacrew ships off for Great Fish Island! People who have played the game, fuck off with your spoilers.  
> Thank you to the lovely polyfandrous for comparing Song of Skaia to a revelation, which inspired me to write this scene the way I did (and of course to Mark Hadley for actually writing Song of Skaia). The song is very interesting because it’s a Hometuck fansong, written partly in Quenya and Sindarin from LotR, but it works so well for the Zelda creation myth, particularly Farore’s part in it. Here’s a translation:
>
>>   
> “Thought blows in the wind, in the wind  
> Light shines from the void, light from the void  
> Dreams awaken out of sleep, dreams out of sleep  
> Creation twirls in a bright shadow
>> 
>> Spirit flows in the wind, spirit in the wind  
> Light burns in darkness, light in darkness  
> Truth is born out of dreams; truth is born  
> All is created out of nothing; all is created
>> 
>> Around the new-born world  
> Wandering spirit flows in the wind
>> 
>> Music joins light  
> All is born from a dream”  
> 
> 
> You can easily see that as Farore blowing spirit and consciousness into now living creatures of her own creation.
> 
> Also, in regards to a complaint (polyfandrous’s) about the previous chapter, concerning mushrooms not being nearly as flammable as plants, my response is as follows: magic. I also thank polyfandrous for being my best friend and greatest supporter. I love you or whatever.


	20. The Hurricane

Their bond reaffirmed and strengthened beneath the watchful gaze of the goddess, the trio enjoyed the New Year’s Festival long into the night.   John and Aradia made a mutual agreement not to imbibe alcohol, which as a show of good faith, Roxy followed to an extent, only allowing herself two drinks. 

With that said, the liquor of Forest Haven is very subtle in taste yet strong in content, made with hallucinogenic herbs, and for once in her life she felt that she had had enough before she’d even finished the second cup.

“You guys go on and have fun,” she said, lying down on a lily pad that was just big enough for her, spilling the rest of the acid green potion into the water.  It fizzled and hissed, and a little shrimp-like creature floated up on its back.  “Go do coupley things and leave poor old Roxy by her lonesome to stare at the fireflies,” she said, her pupils dilating.  Sweet suffering Signless, Skaia was magnificent tonight.  She could see it through the Deku Leaves fluttering high above in the breeze.

“You okay Roxy?” asked John, squeezing Aradia’s hand.  Dear Gods they were _holding hands,_ it was too cute.

“Fine, fine just,” and then she mumbled something incoherent about destiny.

“Come on John,” said Aradia, looking at her friend pityingly, “let’s just go enjoy the festival.  We’ll check up on her until she feels better!”

“I dunno,” said John, string down at the prone Sheikah, “can we really—”

A silvery-blue crescent arced its way through the air just by his head; he jumped back and yelped.  The thrown weapon zipped through the air, doing a big lazy turn through a cloud of fireflies and returning to Roxy’s hand.  “John Egbert,” she hissed, still looking straight up, “you will go into that festival and win your moirail something that is cute and stuffed.  Then you will buy me something excessively sweet and fattening, at which point I will regain feeling in my face.  Go and do thus.”

John took a step back, lips twisted in a slight grimace.  “Um,” he began, but Aradia picked him up and hopped onto the next lily pad.  “Don’t worry about your food,” she called back, “we won’t be too long!”

To Roxy it felt like they were gone for days, but it was really less than thirty minutes.  She had waking dreams, and stepped outside her body to witness the majesty of creation.  The universe was a gigantic tree she saw, with bark of stone, situated in a grove of one hundred and eight identical trees, but that was just an illusion of her limited perception; it was actually a frog.

She thought she envisioned a conversation with that creepy old man, Old Man Ho Ho.  He was strolling through the water with tiny boats on his feet, and there was something horrifying under his hat that she refused to look at, but it fizzled and smoked and clicked and whirred like a diabolical crab.  He glared down at her with eyes of coal, but she didn’t care, she was floating in space with the Golden Goddesses and discussing John’s fine ass.  Nayru asked _the most inappropriate questions_.

Snarling and swearing and hissing low so no one could hear, here at the edge of the festival, with steam shooting out of his ears, Ho Ho disassembled his cane.  The hooked handle came off, and he clicked some kind of mechanism.  It was hollow, Roxy could see, looking up at it as she was, and he held it like some kind of weapon.  “I don’t have my own day,” said Nayru, somewhere up in the cosmos.  “I don’t even know why, I’m the hottest one.  Din’s flat as an ironing board and Farore looks fucking ten.”

“You just slay girl,” Roxy muttered to the Demiurge of Law.  “You just fuckin’ do you and you’ll get what you deserve.”

Ho Ho squinted.  “I’m sorry _what?_ I am threatening you to give up the Triforce!”

A grey fist emerged from the darkness and collided with his face, splitting his lip and knocking a tooth out.

“Get lost, you, uh, creepy old man,” muttered Roxy’s savior.

In her eyes he was shrouded in a blue cape made of cloud, and his horns were tipped with stars.  “He’s cute,” said Nayru, fiddling with her décolletage, tail wagging.

“You said that about the mechanical monkey man,” Roxy drawled, indicting Ho Ho with a wave; he had gotten the drop on Tavros and started drowning him in the waist-high waters, “get some fuckin standards girl, at least Farore can tell a choice ass from a less choice ass whether she looks ten or not.”

“Speaking of,” slurred the goddess, her skin flushing rainbow colors, “I am pretty sure you were checking out Aradia’s.”

“Man I don’t even like girls like that!” Roxy shouted, as Tavros struggled with the surprisingly strong old man in the water, barely managing to escape his grapple and landing a pair of uppercuts just below his ribcage.  “But like, if I had to pick a chick, you know?” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Totally,” replied Nayru, dissolving into a mass of peach colored bubbles, each of which contained the proud, sad visage that so often adorned her temples in Chosen, “I mean of course I understand you completely, I’m just a representation of your of thoughts after all.”

“You’re not really Nayru then?” Roxy asked, a little despondent.

“Sure I am,” drawled the bubble storm, “I can be two things.  It's subjective reality, man.”  The bubbles popped one by one, dissolving into quanta.

“That’s beautiful,” said Roxy, watching Ho Ho retreat from the Forest Haven, Tavros splintering the man’s cane over his knee.  “We are all God!” Roxy shouted loudly into the night, pumping her fist crazily and flipping her lily pad into the water.

It took the cold shock to make her realize something important; unlike almost every troll she’d met, Tavros had no wings.

She blacked out for a moment, during which she was pretty sure she actually talked to Tavros, mostly because she kept opening her eyes and seeing him looming over her, saying something.  “I mean, it’s not like I was faking or anything,” he said, clutching his shirt collar.  “I didn’t just start calling myself the Breath Waker because I felt like—”

When next he spoke, or rather when next Roxy remembered him speaking, he was tapping a ring on his left hand.  It was made of pale Azurine, and had a red stone shaped like a flower.  “They let me keep it because it was a gift,” he explained, “without it I wouldn’t be able to walk.”  Roxy said something to the effect of ‘that’s nice’ before dozing off once more.

“—nd I let go,” said Tavros, chocolaty tears streaking down his cheeks.  Roxy was certain they were delicious.  “And he said my name once, and then the waves washed over him and he was gone.”  He was bawling now but Roxy had nothing else in mind other than how hungry she was.  “They never even found the body,” Tavros said, or was about to say, before Roxy leapt up and began licking the tears off his face.  She passed out again, her stomach rumbling.

“Hey get the fuck lost!” John shouted, throwing a rock or some other suitably hard thing that plopped satisfyingly in the water.  “Taking advantage of a drunk girl you sick fuck!?”  He sloshed over to the lily pad menacingly.

Tavros leapt to his feet, soaking himself once more.  “Six in the morning, you’ll talk to your friends?” he asked, looking down desperately while John let out a stream of virile expletives.

“Sure fuckin’ thing Mr. Éclair,” she said, giggling loudly.  Roxy had no clue what he was talking about.  “You really do taste like chocolate!” she shouted as he ran off into the dark.

John hugged her and Aradia spoon fed her the most delicious cinnamon roll she had ever tasted.  It was smothered in cream cheese frosting and those delightful honey-roasted Deku Nuts.  She cried as she ate it.

Once she was lucid enough to walk, in about another thirty minutes, the three of them were actually able to enjoy the festival as a unit without worrying about each other.  “I swear to Din if that asshole shows his face around here again I am going to kill him,” John muttered, looking around shiftily.

“Shut up and eat your nikuman,” Aradia said, slapping his back good-naturedly, almost knocking him over.  “I swear, are you the one keeping me calm or am I the one keeping you?” she asked, sticking her tongue out. 

John stuck his tongue out in return before biting into his little meat bun.  Steam rose out of it into the air.

“Could you really even kill a guy, John?” Roxy asked, spinning on her toes as she walked—she’d clearly had dance training—and staring at things that the other two could not see.

“Of course I could,” John said, quirking an eyebrow.  “I killed Dualscar didn’t I?”

“He was already dead,” said Roxy, dramatically flipping her hair.

“And what about all the Bokoblins I’ve killed?” said John.  “They’re…basically people.  Scaly, shouty, ugly monster-people, but still people.”

Roxy started to chuckle, but then she saw the tight look in Aradia’s eyes.  She remembered something about attendants, ghosts that haunted the troll girl.  Surely there were Bokoblins among them, clamoring and gibbering, condemning the trio for their role in the persecution of their race.  A race of child-eaters and monsters yes, but sentient, or close enough, with clothing and culture all their own.  The thought was more sobering than any amount of cold water.

 

The rest of the night passed by as warm and sweet as the lazy southern winds in spring.  The children did not forget their quests and their vows, but set them aside to enjoy the festivities.  The Carapacians of Forest Haven are a more refined, more deeply spiritual people than the trolls of Dragonroost, and their festival was thus more intimate, more comfortable than the trolls’ farewell, but no less fun or full of food and song.  They danced the night away and devoured earthy forest snacks, nuts and spiced pastries, by the basketful, never seeming to get full.  The smell of the heady green liquor filled the air, and it must have carried with it hints of its strange intoxicants, for the children found that things blurred together towards the end, as they grew tired, their mouths numb with sweets and noses burning with alcohol.

At the end of their journey, the four children mainly remembered tasting things, and very little else.

John didn’t know when they went to sleep, or for how long, but he awoke before the rosy fingers of dawn began to show through the splotches of deep indigo that stuck out between the Deku King’s leaves. He felt fully rested, his body warm though his face was chilly, his mouth slightly crusted over with maple sugar.  Sitting up, he realized that Aradia and Roxy were lying next to him, tangled in their party robes, dribbling slightly onto the floor.  The three of them were lying in a bed of Deku leaves, as big as dinner plates, all red and gold.  All around, the forest had turned colors, and the trees were shedding their leaves.

He saw the great amber eyes of the Deku King watching him through the disrobing branches all around.  **“Good morning, young Breath Waker,”** he said.

“Morning, you Majesty,” said John, gawking at the colors.  “Back home the trees don’t really turn this suddenly,” he added.  “They do it in weird patches at random times through the winter, and by the time spring comes around most of them already have their leaves back.”

The woody giant nodded.  **“The climate so far south is not conducive to brilliantly colored autumns,”** he rumbled.  **“But the magic of our festival lures all the trees to sleep at once, and gives us falls such as there were in old Hyrule.”** With a sigh, he extended his wooden arm, the one that held his massive staff of office, reaching over the canopy of John’s grove.  **“I have dallied long enough,”** he muttered, as much as a tree could be said to mutter, **“Our deal is complete.  I give you Farore’s Pearl.”**

The Pearl detached from his staff and fell in a slow spiral, as if it were a poplar seed.  John caught it before it hit the leafy ground.  It cast a lime green light all around him, the feel of it warm as a summer breeze, its heft as light as air.  “Thank you, your majesty,” he said.  The Deku King nodded sadly, at long last relieved of his ancient duty.

 **“Go west now,”** he commanded, extending a branching finger.  **“Lady Cetus guards the Pearl of Nayru.  She dwells beneath Greatfish Isle in a mighty cave and has done so since time immemorial.  She will be your penultimate challenge, O Breath Waker.”**   He retracted his mighty head and limbs, sighing heavily, as if all this talk and movement had drained him.  **“Meet her with courage.”**

 

The blue hour passed and true dawn broke on the ocean, a sprawling work of impressionism in blue, pink, red-gold and orange, the gentle waves going from indigo to pink to gold, like an ocean-colored sea flower catching fire.

John stashed the Pearl in a compartment under Jaspers’s neck; its glow mingled with the light of Din’s Pearl and with the shard of the Triforce, creating an eerie yellow light.  John slammed the hatch shut, glancing around, and seeing only his companions.  “That tickles,” Jaspers purred.

“Afraid someone’s gonna steal it?” Aradia asked with a wide grin.  “Pirates maybe?”

“I don’t think pirates would attack our ship,” John said, with the tone of someone who was sure they knew what they were talking about.   “Especially since I _almost technically am one_ ,” he finished with every ounce of his smoothness.  The girls ooohed, only slightly ironically.

“Hey new friends!” called a voice that was all too familiar to John.  He’d become acquainted to its tone, the way it rose and fell as if the speaker was unsure of how, exactly, sentences should go, and was experimenting with every other syllable, the way the voice creaked like inferior wood under too much strain, just about to snap, the slightly phlegmy reverberation, as if the speaker was too polite to clear his throat and just let it hoarsen forever.   John spun on his heel, eyes flaring, and gazed upon the countenance of Tavros Nitram.

He was holding a blue pack made of the same leathery leaves as his coat, bulging with supplies, and had a staff of living Deku wood leaning against his shoulder, wider and flatter towards the bottom end, its pale-and-green flesh gleaming like pearls in the sunrise, is tip crowned with a cluster of tiny Deku leaves shimmering red and gold, with an intricately carved spear-point of some darker wood rising through them.  John did not notice the weapon though, merely the needle-filled, idiotic smile on his foe’s face.

“What do you want?” asked John, rolling up his sleeves.

“Put the guns away John,” said Roxy, patting his bare arms.

“What’s a gun?” John asked, with the exact tone he’d just addressed Tavros.

“I think I invited him,” said Roxy, walking carefully over to Tavros’s side.  A Leaden ball zipped between Tavros’s horns, loosed by John’s slingshot.  Tavros blanched at the sound of the ball smashing into the wooden walls of Forest Haven behind him.  Roxy put her hand on Tavros’s shoulder and glared, ears flattering against her skull.

“You’re a great friend and I trust you with my life and all Roxy,” said John, loading another ball into the pocket and drawing the string taut, “but I would really like to know _why_.”

“He…” Roxy began, a smile blooming on her face and then falling as she tried to remember, then remembered that she had forgotten.  “Um, we had some kind of a talk last night…?  Tav, help me out here.”

Tavros sighed, stepping forward, as another lead ball zoomed over his head, this time ruffling the tips of his Mohawk.  “Um, okay, this thing,” he said, pulling his metallic blue guitar pick from his coat pocket, “it’s a breath waker form Zephos!  H-he gave it to me himself,” he trailed off, losing his bit of steam that had set him talking in the first place.

“What’s he look like?” John asked, narrowing his eyes.

“A big blue frog…” Tavros noted the look in John’s eyes and stammered, “He really is! I swear!”

“Hey John,” said Roxy, furrowing her brow, “Jaspers gave you yours!  You wouldn’t know what Zephos looks like anyway.”

John flushed.  “Well actually,” he said, afraid to sound like he was making things up to compete with Tavros, “I had a vision, the first time I conducted the breeze.  Zephos came to me as a giant frog and said that I was the true Breath Waker of this generation.”

“He said I was a Breath Waker too,” said Tavros, raising his voice slightly, taking another step forward with first unconsciously clenched.  “He said there’s breath wakers and then there’s Breath Wakers, or something like that.”

John sighed, knuckling his forehead.  “I think…” he paused for a moment, tipping his head back up to the sky.  “I think Zephos is a _capricious jackass!”_ he shouted into the clouds.  In answer, they thought they heard a whooping guffaw on the wind’s breath, but it may have been nothing.  Or it may have been _something_ from the bellows-like lungs of a gigantic frog.

John sighed, lowering the slingshot.  “I guess you just thought you were the only one who could do anything, huh?”

Tavros nodded his head shakily.  “He told me that I would have to help pave the way for the true Hero.”

“That’s what we’re doing!” Aradia declared.

With a nod and a forced smile, John said, “hop on the boat.  Let’s get paving.”  He hoped that he could learn to like the troll.  Otherwise, it would be a very long Quest.

 

As they steered the boat northeast, Tavros talked about his adventures, haltingly, as if he was sure no one actually wanted to hear it.  He’d begun in a country far to the west, where trollkind were few and far between, and had no dragon god to give them scales to fly.  It was instead a theocracy ruled by a wise and ancient oracle, and those who could play instruments were pressed into her service, granting her strength with their music.  Without her, Tavros said, the Seawall would cave in around them and drown all of Labrynna.

When the Cataclysm hit in ancient times, drowning Hyrule and the surrounding lands, the three oracles of the goddesses, who lived outside is borders, did what they could to protect their peoples.  The Oracle of Secrets, it was said, changed the shape of the people of her country, turning them into Carapacians and scattering them across the world.  Of the Oracle of Seasons, none knew her fate, for none could ever sail far enough east.  The Oracle of Time however, placed a seal on the encroaching disaster, a gigantic tidal wave that could drown mountains, and froze it in time.

Tavros had been among her musicians, whose prayers kept the Seawall from falling in, but Zephos came to him in the full light of noon and commanded him to go east, to slay monsters and make himself ready for the coming of the hero.  Tavros did as commanded, stealing a boat and climbing the seawall.  Frozen in time, he said, the seawater was like thick slush, drained of all color and neither hot nor cold.  He could not sail his boat over its sheer surface, so he strapped his little coracle to his back and began to climb, part of him certain that he would either fall and drown, or that there was nothing on the other side and he would simply fall off the end of the world upon reaching the top.  Instead, he saw the open ocean for the first time, the Great Sea, and at the very edge of the horizon, the peaks of its thousand-thousand islands.

He saw many strange things as he paddled east; the mechanized ships of Calatia, the Great Temple of the Ocean Spirit, the Island of the Tokay, strange creatures indeed, and a pod of magnificent windfish, great leviathans who swim through both sky and sea.  He could swear he saw the Dreaming Island, Koholint, which sails the sea like a gigantic ship with a volcano for a mast, a pod of rainbow colored windfish for sails, and glittering palace for its forecastle.  Like any other mariner however, Tavros could never be sure if it was real or a dream.

John mainly tuned him out and focused on working the rudder.  He was still irked about not being the one and only Breath Waker, though he knew it was a selfish thought and that Dave would need all the help he could get.  It’s not like John was bad, he told himself, he’d let Tavros come along after all.  And John had never doubted that he would need help on his own journey; there’d been no question of letting the girls join him after all.  It was simply that he’d assumed he would play a key role, when it turned out that there were at two Breath Wakers.  Dave could not be replaced; there was only one Hero per generation, his mighty Breath passing from a spent body to that of a newborn.  Breath Wakers must be the redundant parts in this world-saving machine, then.

Somewhere at the halfway point, a strong wind began to blow against them, making Jaspers stall in the water.  John let go the tiller and played the Wind’s Requiem, pointing it dagger-like into the wind and changing its direction.

A storm was brewing on the horizon with alarming quickness.  Storms grew fast on the Great Sea, they all knew, but within seconds, the blue-tinged puffs of white on the horizon had bloomed like poison mushrooms into towering hills of steely grey.  Mere minutes after that, they had become enormous thunderheads, bigger than mountains; heavenly cliff faces gleaming silver where the sun hit their flanks.  At their centers though, they were bruise purple, darkening before their eyes to dim grey and then to black, illuminated by blue and gold flashes.

Worryingly, the clouds were heading right towards them like a celestial tidal wave, flying against the wind John had conjured.  Admittedly, John didn’t know how high he could affect the wind with his Breath Waker, whether he changed the whole wind or created a new one just big enough for Jaspers and crew, but it was unsettling nonetheless.  The edges of the clouds that still caught the sunlight became blurry and streaked, and the ocean in the distance turned fuzzy.  “Brace yourselves guys,” John said, glaring at the rapidly approaching storm, ears back.  His hair and fur were puffing up with the charge in the air; Aradia’s had swelled to twice its size.  Tavros pulled out his leaf guitar and began to play.

[The storm hit them like a physical thing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLTxak2HqAw) and Jaspers screeched as if he were in physical pain.  John’s conjured wind clashed against the storm’s, which carried with it driving rain that stung the face.  It came before the clouds like a herald, and for an instant the rain caught the sun, making it seem like a wall of gold.

Tavros struck a chord, and they were through, the power of his Breath Waking keeping the boat steady on its course, and then an instant later, they were inside a world gone dark.

The girls clapped.  “Way to go Tavros!” Roxy said, her ears flapping like pink sails in the gale, elbowing the boy who was already turning brown with the praise.

“Can you do something about this rain?” John grumbled, taking off his glasses; it had become impossible to see with them on.  He squinted around in every direction and his heart sank.  The clouds above were so thick and the rain so harsh, he could see nothing after a few yards.  He said it again, louder, to be heard over the sound of the rain and thunder.  The air thrummed with the force of it, but the darkness was so profound that lightning flash rarely illuminated the scene.  Jaspers hissed at the storm as if it were a true cat and not a boat.

John felt the thin skin of his left ear tear, a trickle of blood bringing him warmth before it was whipped away in the breeze.  He tore a strip from his sleeve and wadded it against the ear, then drew his hood tight around his head.

“Um no,” replied the troll, after a few moments of experimental strumming.  He’d been replying for a little while in fact, but had not managed to shout loud enough. “Sorry!”

“Don’t worry John,” Roxy assured, as she bound a strip of cloth around her ears to keep them safe from the wind.  She inched her way to Jaspers’s neck and began to pet the hissing figurehead like a beloved pet.  “We can get to Greatfish in this weather no problem!  The wind you made hasn’t changed and you aimed it true.”

“ _And_ I can do something about the dark,” Aradia chimed in, pulling a glass bottle from her inventory.  She uncorked it and breathed into the bottle, and a little red flame sprouted up, floating in its center like a will-o’-the-wisp but steady and bright as a candle before corking it up again.

The sea was illuminated for several yards around, but after a certain distance the red light simply reflected off a wall of rain, surrounding the children with something like a theater curtain, except it was cold and wet, and it stung.  The shadow the Jaspers’s head cast on the curtain ahead seemed like the body of a monster cut from nothingness, a hole in the air with tentacles and horns.  He twitched his whiskers and began to purr beneath Roxy’s hands, breaking the illusion.

The mind of a sentient being can become accustomed to anything, and in time the noise of the storm became a dull roar.  The children shouted to be heard, but did so automatically, in speaking tones, but louder, as if they were simply struggling to be heard at a loud party.

“Never seen a storm like this before!” said Roxy.

“It’s like something out of a legend,” John agreed.

“Like the cataclysm,” muttered Tavros.  No one heard him.

Aradia said nothing but produced a pair of buckets from her inventory, looking a bit embarrassed, and handed one to Roxy, motioning for her to start bailing.  No one else had noticed, because the storm-wall had soaked them instantly, but there was water up to their ankles now.  Roxy sighed and left the figurehead, and began to hurl the water from their boat.  Aradia hung her makeshift lantern from the mast, and joined her.

Something hard hit John in the face, right between the bridge of his nose and his eye.  He started, giving a little yell and letting go of the tiller, and the hard little something fell to the floor.  He bent and picked it up, gripping the tiller tight.  There was a lump of ice the size of a walnut floating on the water about his feet.  “Huh?” he muttered, just as it began to hail in earnest.

The sound of hail on the sea is like stone dropped into a bucket of water, played a hundred thousand times in succession with extra reverb from all the times it happens simultaneously.  This particular hail was interrupted by the sound of children being startled and hurt by the massive hailstones.  In a single fluid motion, John unslung his shield and lifted it over his head, then put his other hand back on the tiller.  The hail bounced off the enchanted boards, never hitting him again on the way down.

The girls hid under their buckets, crouching under the mast.  John could hear Roxy swearing under her breath.  Aradia was giggling, a harsh giggle that was almost like sobbing.  John had heard it before, in Hephaestus’s Forge.

“Aradia,” he called, and she stopped.  [“Look at me.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53rCO8BsKwU)

She turned, twisting slightly around the mast, and lifted the bucket off her head enough for her red and grey eyes to peek out at him.  Her crimson eyelashes were frosted with water, and her hair was sparkling with droplets and hung with hailstones, all glowing like embers in the light of her fire.  Yeah John?” she called, voice small as it could be and still be heard.  Even in the face of an apocalyptic storm, John thought, she was the prettiest girl he’d ever known.

“We’re all going to be okay,” John said, his voice hoarse from the chill that was starting to set in.  “We’re all going to come out on the other side, to a brighter world.”  He laughed a bit to himself, looking up around his shield.  “It’s like when we were back on Dragonroost, and Pyralspite’s clouds made everything look dim from the bottom.  But, when we were climbing the mountain, we got high enough that we could see over and past them, and the rest of the world was as blue and clean as it always is.”  He felt a snippet of a quote in his heart, something very, very old that his Nana had taught him while he lay sick in bed as a child.  “’In the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.’”

Aradia’s lips parted in a small, tender smile, and just then the boat shook as if struck by a catapult and jumped five feet in the air.

The girls were thrown to the floor, their buckets ringing with the impact, and John only avoided being flung into the mast by gripping the tiller so tight his nails dug into the wood and were broken by the blow.

No one looked for a culprit, but Tavros made himself immediately suspicious by playing his guitar as fast as he could; the storm around them eased to the level it had been at less than a minute ago.  None of them noticed that Tavros had continued to play through the storm and still the waters and winds around them to the point that they could sail in comfort.  “I stopped because of the hail,” he admitted, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking!”

John growled.  “Get over here!” he barked, “my shield’s big enough for both of us!”

It wasn’t quite.  But it was big enough to keep Tavros’s guitar safe from the falling hailstones and, huddled cheek-by-jowl, it kept the worst of the hail off the two boys.

Despite the uncomfortable heat of Tavros’s body pressed up against him, John’s arms were cold and stiff, and would not feel warm again for a long while yet.

 

It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to continue sailing through the hurricane (there was no denying that it was no mere storm at this point), John thought, the feeling gone from his hands, Tavros bleeding from his fingertips as he continued to play.  Still, what else could they have done?  Turned around and weathered the hurricane in Forest Haven, wasting precious time?  They would probably not have been able to outrace it anyway.  At least now, the hail had let up, replaced by a soft drizzling rain, and high, high above, the sun was at its zenith, turning the once black clouds to an almost normal grey, as if this were nothing other than a regular day on the Great Sea with a regular rain.

The girls came out from under their buckets, and John allowed Tavros to stop playing.  “Break time,” said John, “I am starving and this is as dry as we are going to get.”

The food was fortunately stored in a waterproof container.  Roxy laid out biscuits baked with Deku nuts and a tangy green jam while Aradia fussed over Tavros’s bloodied fingers and then John’s shattered nails and torn ear.  She sat beside him on the rearmost bench, nudging him aside so that the tiller lay between them and then grabbed his hand.  He noted with dull surprise that his fingers were caked in clotted blood; Aradia mere let out a little fascinated “hmm”. 

It barely hurt when Aradia washed them clean with sea water and two of his nails fell like crusty snowflakes.  “Did you honestly not feel this?” she asked, picking one of them up off her lap.  She stared at it a second, before flicking it over the edge.  Tavros watched them while pretending to tune his guitar.

“I _did_ ,” he whined, and the tone he took made him blink, as if trying to reassure Aradia that he could, in fact, feel pain.  He winced exaggeratedly when she dabbed on red chu jelly with a cotton ball.  In truth, it felt like the sting had happened to someone else.  A few seconds later though, he felt a dull, hot ache start in his nail beds and flow up his arm until it nestled in his elbow like a snake returning to its den.

“If you’re feeling that, it means the potion is reviving your blood because _your arms are frozen,”_ she scolded, smacking his forearm.  Aradia bound John’s three injured fingertips in silvery bandages made, like all things in Forest Haven, from the fibers of Deku wood.  By the time she finished, the ache was trickling down his other arm, and John beginning to be in genuine pain.  Aradia grinned and kissed his bandaged fingertips.  “All better, helmsman,” she said.

“Thanks, ship’s doctor,” he said as sassily as he could, trying not to smile too hard as he rubbed the tender bandaged nubs to his opposite palm.  She moved on to his ear, which smarted much more sharply when she rubbed it clean.  The warmth spread much more quickly this time, and pooled in his stiff neck.

“Yo, I better be first mate!” Roxy shouted as she handed Tavros his food.  “Also you two are super gross and adorable.”

“Jaspers, what are you?” asked John as he accepted a biscuit.

“Captain,” said the boat.  John almost choked on his food, and the vessel wagged its tiller like a tail.

“One day you need to tell us your deal,” John said, giggling round a mouthful of biscuit.

Jaspers turned its head, gazing at the Breath Waker with huge, wooden eyes.  The floor rumbled as it began to purr, tilting its head back, eyes rolling back into half-shut lids.  “Soon,” it said.  “All secrets will be laid bare.”

John shivered.  Again, the beast displayed some oracular power, just as unsettling as it had been before.  There was a tension in the air not brought about by any storm, but by the gulf that lay between the children and the creature they sailed upon, the creature that seemed to friendly and simpleminded, and yet was filled with arcane knowledge.  Was Jaspers a messenger of the gods, John wondered, some strange wooden angel of Farore or Nayru?

Tavros crunched a hailstone between his teeth and everyone made of flesh winced and turned to glare at him.  Jaspers merely shook the water from his head and yawned luxuriantly.  Eyes wide, he slowly raised another to his mouth, popped it in, and crunched.  “What?” he said.  “Did I do something wrong?”  He swallowed, pointing at the figurehead.  “Is he _not_ normally all…mysterious and prophetic?”

“Nope,” said Aradia.  “He’s usually just a cat, but pink and tentacled and a boat.”

“That looks fun,” Jaspers mewled, and lowered its head into the water, filled its mouth with a pile of hailstones, and began to crunch them between its wooden leucrotta-teeth. 

John and the girls winced at the sound.  Ice was hard to come by on the great sea, so John and Aradia were particularly susceptible to the pain that Jaspers unwittingly subjected them.  “You force your way onto my crew,” said John, glaring at Tavros, “teach my boat bad habits—”

“On this, the day of his daughter’s wedding!” Roxy snapped, contorting her face into false rage.  Everyone giggled, except Jaspers, who continued to chew ice.

 

Some two hours later, it had begun to rain hard again, the sky darkening into evening.  Aradia made more lanterns and hung them about the boom like little red St. Elmo’s Fires.  “We’re close,” said Roxy.  “We’ll probably make it before dusk."  John nodded and grit his teeth, sipping from his steaming canteen.  Roxy had spiked the water with chu jelly and warmed it with magic, making an emergency restorative that worked wonders for warming up the ragtag crew.  Tavros thrummed his guitar, getting ready to break out into proper song at a moment’s notice.

As the day wore on and the light waned further and further, an island appeared on the horizon, one of jagged peaks and odd curls.  “What is that?” John asked, squinting over at it.

“Yoink,” said Roxy, snatching the telescope from his inventory.  She extended it with a smart _*snap*_ and aimed it towards the island.  “Hmm,” she said, pulling out their charts to get a look.  “This is really weird,” she said, tracing lines along the quickly dampening map.  “This part of the sea is _really_ well mapped,” she explained, “better than the waters around Outset and Forest Haven.  But assuming that we are where I think we are, and that we didn’t see any of the islands we might’ve seen between here and the Haven because of the hurricane, Greatfish Isle should be right there,” she said, pointing at the strange isle.

“But it doesn’t look like that,” John concluded.  He felt a coldness in the pit of his stomach.  He remembered having a feeling when he, Dave and Rose passed Greatfish, seemingly so long ago, that because he had failed to see it that time, he would never _get_ to see it, that somehow it had been his only chance to lay eyes on the reportedly beautiful island and its famous town.

As they sailed closer, debris could be spotted in the water.  They took it for driftwood first, just branches and bits of wood.  Then there were entire uprooted trees still bearing leaves and fruit, and then wads of hay, clearly thatched together, bits of walls, whitewashed, painted with fragments of iridescent murals, accidental rafts made of red tiled roofs. 

Then at last, a body drifted by facedown, its flesh as pale as a dead fish.

“Oh gods,” Tavros muttered, breathing hard and making the sign of the Triforce in front of him.  “The hurricane must have been even worse around here.”

They approached the jagged island until they could see the surprisingly green slopes of its hills, the slumping remains of its village.  Above it, the clouds swirled angrily, and the children feared a waterspout.  An odd thing happened; the waves grew in frequency as they approached, but they were coming _from_ the island, not heading towards it as the laws of nature dictated.

“We need to avoid that place,” said Tavros, beginning to play in earnest.  “It must be cursed,” he eyed the waves warily, as if they were hiding gyorgs, or the hungry souls of the recently drowned.

“No,” Roxy snapped, “we need to get to that island and help the survivors!”

“It really is cursed,” said Jaspers, “but we can’t avoid it.”  Everyone’s attention was now on the carved head.  Its ears were pricked up angrily, and there was the beginning of a hiss in Jaspers’s voice.  “We can’t avoid it because it’s our destination,” he went on.

Roxy gasped as if she’d fallen into the frigid sea, and in fact John checked over the side to make sure that that had not happened.   _“That_ is Greatfish Isle!?” she screamed.  Burying her head in her hands, the scream became a moan.  “Janey is going to be _devastated.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Highdily ho readerinos! It’s been a bit, but not as long of a bit as it could have been, or indeed as long of a bit is it has been, historically. I was actually working on this chapter with something like regularity, knocking out a passage an average of every two weeks, but I was also busy. See I spent most of April and May writing an original story that I have submitted to Tor.com. Fingers crossed y’all! This is a great opportunity for me, and I’ll link it here if they decide to take it.
> 
> A few things to note for folks that have been following me for a while, since it has been so very long since we covered them: Jane is in this story, is being held along with Jade at the Forsaken Fortress, and is from Greatfish Isle. Also John got his Breath Waker from Jaspers, not Zephos specifically, and Roxy taught everyone Din’s fire like ten chapters ago.
> 
> Thanks to Lordlyhour for the Labrynna headcanon he submitted like two years ago that I incorporated into Tav’s backstory. Also, Tavros’s new weapon is based on the Deku Spear from Hyrule Warriors, but also the Maori taiaha, which is a much more interesting looking weapon.
> 
> *Ahem* Tavros joined your party! Tavros is a skilled troubadour and a fellow Breath Waker, using a combination of magic music and the long reach of his spear to keep enemies at a distance. He is strong like many trolls, but his body is frail due to CHILDHOOD ILLNESS. Tavros would rather avoid fighting, and when possible uses his TAURUS PSI POWERS to DOMINATE THE WILL of animalian enemies. Hearts: 3. Magic: 7. Likes to CRUNCH ICE like a fucking KNOB.


	21. To Sweep Off the Waves as They Swept Over Me

[The very island had been shaken down to its foundations and destroyed, shattered like a bowl struck with a hammer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nq-gEG-E04).  Spires of stone, their sides still green with grass rose up from the grey water like a quiver flint knives forgotten in some pool, left to grow moss in the rain.  Huge date palms, hundreds of years old from their massive height, grew perpendicular to the ocean, their soft trunks bending down towards the water, fronds and fruits being washed away by the spray.  The foundations of houses stuck out of the spires like barnacles, their main structures brought down and blown away by the wind.

The water all around the wreck was flooded with debris, so much and so thick the children could have walked to the remains of the island, but the land mass itself had been stripped bare of any remnants of civilization.

It was hard to call Greatfish Isle and island anymore thought John, his heart pounding with rising terror.  It would be generous to call it several.  He pinched his own wrist for thinking of a joke in the face of such tragedy.

The only place where it looked like they’d even be able to land was a narrow strip of scree between two lumps of grassy stone that must once have been rolling hills.  The children dragged Jaspers up onto the ground and hopped off, stretching their legs and looking around.  The bit of land was ten yards long and about three wide, with a shiny red mailbox planted in the center, some tragicomic marker of the life the island once held.  John walked past it, silent, until he wet his feet in the water on the far side.  A little ways off into the water he saw a wall of deep blue stone, arched near the top and deeply marbled with an even darker shade of blue.  Moored to it was a small raft made of sturdy logs bearing some pots.  There was no sign of who might have piloted it here, and John assumed they had perished with the rest of the island.

“We’ll look for survivors,” John said, half-heartedly.  There was no indication that there’d be any.  He remembered when a hurricane had hit Outset when he was a small child, and how the cries of the injured had carried during the calm of the storm.  There was nothing of that here.

 

An hour or so later, they’d given up.  If anyone had survived, thought John, they’d fled this dreadful place hours go.  He somehow hoped that most of the people had left, despite what the abundance of broken ship parts bobbing in the water and lodged in trees and between stones told him; that it came too suddenly for anyone to make it to a boat.

Without speaking, all the children agreed to set up camp on their sad little strip.  Using one of Aradia’s fires, they were able to warm up their food.  A touch of salt water had gotten into the bread since their lunch, leaving it soggy, but they ate it anyway.  “Caliborn won’t have to kill us,” said John, voice full of venom as he swallowed a bit of salty biscuit.  “We’ll die of pneumonia in a few hours.”

Roxy snorted.  “I think this bread isn’t the only thing that’s salty here, John.”

“Where’s Aradia?” asked Tavros, looking around.

“Bruh,” said John.  “I’m not one of those guys that’re all defensive of his date mate but step off.”

Tavros coughed, face darkening.  “Um, what?”

“It’s kind of embarrassing,” said John.  “How obvious your crush is, I mean.  ‘Oh shit, where’s Aradia?’ every time she’s out of your sight?  Dude chill, she probably just went to pee somewhere.  Maybe you like her because she was nice to you, or just because she’s the only troll in the group.  I’m not telling you how to feel, but stop being so blatant.”

Tavros looked utterly confused and miserable.  “But—like—I don’t even u-understand what you—”

John gestured widely, flinging a small spattering of moist breadlumps through the air.  “Okay, fine there’s quadrants in your guys’s romance, so if you’re like red for her or whatever; I won’t stop you because we’re pale, right, but for fucks sake we’ve only been together like a day, there’s gotta be a waiting period!  Let her get used to the pale zone before you start proposing red marriage Tav!”

Tavros was making a small, whining noise under his breath, keeping his eyes firmly in the fire.  His face was so brown that not even a hint of grey showed through the blush.  It took him a second to realize that Roxy was trying hard not to laugh, mouth covered, shaking her head as if to say ‘no, not here, there was a tragedy here, you mustn’t’.  He glanced over at John; the boy was smiling, though his ears were halfway down and he looked more sick and sad than happy.  Still, he didn’t look angry like he’d sounded.  Had it just been a joke and not an accusation?  Tavros experimented with a chuckle—

And just then Aradia slammed down in the middle of the gathering, sending up a spray of gravel and shocking Tavros off his seat and onto the ground.  She was carrying a heavy, rusty bronze chest under her arm; she dropped it and it buried itself in the scree.  “Hey look what I found!” she said, picking up a rock and starting to smash the lock with it.

“Where was it?” asked John.

“So she wasn’t peeing,” muttered Tavros, sitting back up.

“Aradia that’s disrespectful, looting this village, I’m ashamed of you,” said Roxy, leaning in, ears pricked up in excitement.  If she’d had a tail it would be wagging.

“It was up on a hill,” she said, “or crag, or something.  Anyway, where it was used to be the bottom of the ocean so it didn’t belong to anyone, probably.”  With a last strong chop of her stone, the lock broke in half, and she started working on opening the chest.  The edges were rusted shut, almost looking like a solid piece in places.  Roxy scrambled over, whipping out two of her new knives.  She passed one to Aradia and they began cutting and scraping the edges apart.

It took a little less than a minute.  Roxy threw the lid back open with a triumphant shout.  The company was then blinded by a ray of gold and silver light erupting from the box like a volcano.  The brilliant lance shot up through the clouds, piercing a small hole through the maelstrom above.  The light faded, and for a second the kids could see the sky.  It was the deep blue of late evening, and the stars were starting to come out.  Skaia twinkled to life for a moment, and then the clouds closed in again, slamming shut as if flung by an angry hand.

John watched it with one eye, as he was busily rubbing the other one after having ripped his glasses off to do so.  Living with weak eyesight was hard.  “What was in there?” he mumbled, “a flash-bang grenade?”

Aradia poked her head inside and gave a little gasp of surprise.  She pulled out a gleaming shard of gold.  “Looks like we found another piece!” she said, tossing it at John.

It bounced off his hands three times before he was able to cup it against his bandaged fingers.  “Out of how many, again?” he asked the blurry green and pink afterimage of Aradia, “eight?”

“That’s right!” said Roxy.  “Guess coming here wasn’t such a bad move after all!”

Then, like a crimson meteor, another troll slammed down in the middle of the campsite in a perfect three point landing, spraying all of the kids with his dusty impact and making Tavros scream and fall over again.

John squinted at the figure and tried to figure out who it was.  “Is that the empress?” he said, blinking his teary eyes.

“NO JOHN IT’S FUCKING KARKAT,” declared Karkat, rising up to his full height and folding his wings.  He strode over to John and started shaking the boy.  “Why is it that whenever I see you these days I am TERRIFIED FOR YOUR LIFE?!” he shouted.

“Stop being such a wimp maybe,” John said with a grin.

“Shut up, you’re an ass of shit and deserve a sound beating, et cetera,” Karkat growled.  He looked around at the gathered party.  Jaspers yawned and started munching on a clump of hail that had washed up on the beach.  “Is that your boat? What the fuck,” he muttered.   Staring at Tavros, he added, “and kidnapping our resident weirdo wasn’t enough for you, had to go add another troll to the menagerie!”

“Hi my names Tavros,” said Tavros, offering his hand.

“Never heard of you,” Karkat snapped.  “You must be from off.  Anyway, I saw your signal and thought, ‘thank fucking Din, someone survived this asshole of a disaster,’ but it was just you guys. This is still a good thing I guess.”

“What signal?” John asked.  Karkat sputtered angrily, dropping John to the ground, and gesticulated upwards, waving his hands and wiggling his fingers while making _*pew*_ and _*fwoosh*_ noises with his mouth, until John remembered the huge beam of Triforce light.  “Okay!  I know what you mean now! Geez!” he snapped before Karkat could bust a vein.

The troll strode over to the edge of the water, looking out towards the dark ocean.  After a moment, he said, “I take it you’re still going to go through with this quest business?”

“Yeah,” said John.  “We came here to get Nayru’s Pearl from Cetus.”  He looked around.  “What happened anyway?”

“From what the morning mail trolls reported, the storm appeared, and it tried to kill Cetus,” he growled.  “It wasn’t a natural storm but a monster of a storm, and Cetus is a monster of a water spirit; you can see the result of the two of them clashing.”

Pointing at the odd blue stone that loomed ominously in the darkness, Karkat added, “That slab used to be the door to her lair.  She used to have a ton of similar lairs guarded by similar doors all over the Great Sea, but there’s only one left, and it’s probably where she went.”

“Where is it?” asked John.  “We need to go there.”

“The island where you were born,” said Karkat with unnecessary dramatism, “Outset Island.”  Appropriately, lighting crashed in the distance.

John suddenly recalled a memory.  He’d once gone around the island with Dave and Bro on a fishing trip, and seen the southern face of Outset Mountain.  No one ever really went there; the only thing south of the island was a nearly impassable stretch of empty ocean and then the homeland of the cannibals, wherever that was.  There weren’t any towns or even beaches on that side, and the slopes of the mountain were a sheer drop all the way to the water.  But he remembered that the rough, blue-black cliff-face had been interrupted by a stone that was much smoother, marbled deeply with thick blue mineral deposits.  He’d thought it looked like a massive door.

“Shit,” he said.  “What if Cetus attacks there?!  Thanks Karkat, but we have to go now!”

“Wait, what do we do when we get to Outside?” asked Tavros, warming his hands over the fire.  “Um, knock?  Is there some kind of sign we can give Cetus that we’re friendly? 

Jaspers meowed loudly, drawing everyone’s attention back to him.  “Even if there was, she probably won’t want to see anyone for a few hundred years after a home invasion like this.  She’s wounded too,” Jaspers said, closing its eyes, tentacles scratching the top of its head as if thinking hard.  “She’s much weaker now.”

“Soooo,” Tavros said, stretching out the word to an awkward amount of syllables, “do we just break the door on Outside down?”

“Outset,” John snapped, “and no, I don’t think so.”  He rubbed his chin for a bit.  “Karkat, Aradia,” he said, after a minute or two, “can you fly up and prize off a bit of the door?”

While Karkat tore into John for treating him like his own personal errand boy, Aradia fluttered her way up to the door with a series of wing-assisted hops, and then glided back down with four tile-like shards the size of playing cards.  Ignoring Karkat, John played with the pieces, arranging them like puzzle pieces before stacking them and then striking them with his hammer.  They sank into the ground like nails; when he dug them up, they were unharmed.  “These are chunks of Azurine ore,” he said, striking two pieces together to make a spark.  “The whole door is made out of it.  We’re not getting in.”

Roxy snorted.  “Not with that attitude!”  She cracked her knuckles dramatically, then her neck.  “Remember that I am a highly skilled not-ninja.  I’ve been trained in infiltration.  I can get through doors!”  She snatched a piece out of John’s hand, stroking it gently with her fingertips.

“You’ll never break that,” Karkat scoffed.  “Azurine ore is practically indestructible!” 

Roxy ignored him, ears horizontal with concentration.  After a moment, she muttered a word, mostly to herself, and a small burst of pink light flashed into being before rapidly expanding with a loud pop and shattering the shard.  “Vulnerable to concussive force,” she said with a wicked grin.  “You were absolutely right Tavros, we’re breaking the door down!”  Karkat was stunned, mouth gaping.

“With magic?” asked Aradia, eagerly igniting her curls.  Karkat jumped in surprise. “Who the fuck are these kids?” he muttered.

“Hell no,” said Roxy, “We’re not strong enough to do that, not even if we all cast the spell together.  We’re just gonna acquire some bombs out on Windfall!”

“That’s a bit out of our way,” said John.  “It’ll take a whole, what, two days to make the trip?”

“Do you see any other options?” Tavros asked.  “It’s not like we can…I dunno, rescue a Great Fairy from the stomach of a Big Octo anywhere nearby, and she’ll be so grateful that she’ll like, double our magical power.”

“I am going to spank your face with my fist,” said John, “but you’re right.  How much money have we got?”

Aradia jumped back onto Jaspers and dragged a large metal chest out from underneath the rearmost bench, where they’d stowed most of their monetary gain from their adventures.  “This thing can hold about a hundred pieces,” she said, cracking it open.  “And at a glance, it’s nearly full, and more than half the pieces are green.”

“We’ll have to steal the bombs,” Roxy said, smacking her palm with a fist.  “I ducked into the bomb shop on our last visit; the dude’s prices are extortionary.”

Everyone looked at John.  He considered for a moment, then nodded.  “There’s no other choice,” he said.  “Let the great bomb heist begin!”

“Wait!” Karkat shouted.  “Ignoring the fact that I just witnessed a bunch of kids conspiring to _rob a gunpowder store,_ there’s a complication in that plan!”  Here he faltered, tugging at his collar.  “John, you remember those pirates?  Rose’s crew from _The Grimdark?”_

John smiled.  “How could I not?”

“They’re on Windfall,” said Karkat.

“Cool!” said John, ears twitching joyfully.

“And I told them about the Pearl earlier today,” Karkat continued.

“Awesome, do they want to help?”

“Well you see I was drunk,” he said, shuffling his feet a little.  “And kind of a mess.  So, I left out some details and embellished some others, and long story short, they think Outset is home to some legendary treasure horde, and they’re probably loading up on gunpowder right now to break down the door for themselves.”

John’s expression struggled with itself, trying to smile and fall at the same time.  He gave out a laugh, a weak little “heh”, and said, “But Rose is good.  She’d probably want to help me, if she knew what was going on right?  If someone…sober explained things to her.”

Karkat grabbed John’s shoulders, glaring down at the boy.  “Kid she’s a _pirate_.  A _fierce_ pirate with a reputation for brutality.  She only really helped you before because I shamed her into it, and I don’t think she would fall for that again.  I really, _really_ don’t think you should put your faith in a gang of bandits who, remember, left you and Dave to die in that fortress!”

John grit his teeth.  He supposed Karkat had a point; there was no real reason to trust the crew of _The Grimdark,_ and he didn’t want to risk everything he’d fought for trying to find out if he could trust them or not.  “Alright,” John said, “we’ll try to avoid them, and not tell them what we’re up to if we can’t.”

Karkat heaved a sigh of relief.  “Do you have any messages to send your Nana?” he asked.

John bit his lip.  He really should be sending more letters home; it had been less than a week since he’d been found on Dragonroost.  “Just tell her that I’m safe, and I’ll be home soon, with Jade, and, uh…” he pulled out a silver rupee from the moneybox.  “And give her that too,” John finished.

Karkat nodded.  “I promise.  Be safe.”  And with that, he jumped off into the air.  “AND I WON’T TELL HER YOU’RE A CRIMINAL EITHER!” he shouted against the wind, and then and his red wings were quickly lost in the dark.

“Well,” said Roxy, “guess we have an early start tomorrow.  We should hit the hay.”

“I’m not really tired,” Tavros muttered.

“We should probably sleep anyway,” said John, frowning.  He really should have asked about Dave, but then again, if Dave had checked in, Karkat would have told him right?

 

Huddled around the bottled fires, they slept very fitfully.  None of them really felt tired.  It had rained fitfully throughout the night, the storm never really letting up nor stopping, and the sound of rain and hail and thunder on the ocean became a dull white noise that pricked at their minds.  The rain ran down the broken shards of island all around in rivulets, adding a soothing susurrus to the general noise.

Judging by Aradia’s internal clock, it was around six in the morning, and a good hour or so before sunrise when everyone roused themselves.  Though they had barely slept, they didn’t feel that way.  “Does anyone else feel as rested as you did when we went to bed?” asked Tavros.

“Yeah, just about,” asked Roxy.  “Did you do that?”

Tavros shook his head.  “I can only do like, wind and stuff, same as John.”

John bit back a snarky comment about Tavros not knowing what John could do, because Tavros was right.  “It’s weird but we can’t worry about it now,” he said.  “Breakfast, and then we set off.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for it to get brighter?” asked Roxy, looking up.  The blackness overhead was illuminated only by lightning flashes, and their fire reflected blood-red off the falling droplets.  “The sun won’t rise for a while yet.”

“Remember yesterday?” asked John.  “These clouds aren’t letting in any sunlight until the storm is over.”  He repeated himself, “breakfast and then we set off.”

“I’m not even really all that hungry,” said Aradia, stretching herself with a yawn.  “Who wants my share?”

Roxy opened her mouth to accept it, but then stopped.  “I think I’ll pass too.”

Tavros nodded along.  “Yeah, me too.”

“You’re not just saying that to be cool?” asked John with a smirk.  Tavros shook his head.  “Then we can skip eating altogether, because I’m not hungry either.”

 

It wasn’t until they’d set out, the second Triforce piece secured with the other treasures, that Jaspers said, “If these clouds weren’t in the way we’d see some beautiful stars.  We should go night sailing more often!”

Roxy coughed.  “Jaspers, babe,” she said, “we know you’re not…actually dumb, so cut it out, it’s morning.”

“Nope,” said Jaspers simply, looking over his bough at them.

Aradia giggled, if the sound could be called that.  It was low and dangerous, and sounded like dry stones clacking down a mineshaft. “You know, Jaspers, I’ve always been very good at telling the time,” she said, looking at something out in the water that no one else saw, “It’s like I can feel the moon and the earth moving around me, keeping pace with this tempo that thrums through everything, keeping everyone in line.  But…I must be worse at it than I thought because I can swear the moon and stars haven’t moved at all since last night.”  She bent her head back, hair spilling from her head and swinging free of her back, and stared up at the clouded sky.

John looked up and saw only the roiling blackness above.  For a moment he was frightened of what he might see if the clouds were removed.  His ears drooped low.

“Caliborn is a Lord of Time,” said Jaspers, “he could be doing something to the Earth’s rotation.  Most of his power is buried under the full weight of the sea, but he could do this kind of thing all the time in the old days!”

John growled in frustration.  “At a _fraction_ of his power he can do all of these things?”

“I told you,” Jaspers purred, “Caliborn wants to strangle the heartbeat of creation—”

“I know,” John sputtered.

“—lock the void into a single unceasing moment—”

“Yes you told me—”

“—calling all evil to him from all corners of the—”

“Okay I get that—”

“—not fighting for yourself, nor me, nor your sister but for everything, everywhere, for all of time,” Jaspers paused in his recitation a moment, seeming to have forgotten what came next.

After a while, John sighed and said, “We’ll just have to finish our Quest so Dave can kill him before he gets stronger.” He tried to sound confident, but was growing cold inside.  He almost wished he could just go home, but he’d made a vow, and he’d see it through.

The journey to Windfall was long and tense, but largely uneventful.  The waves rolled and tumbled them from side to side, but the power of the Breath Wakers kept their course steady and the wind on their side.  Once, the shadow of a great beast passed beneath them, a gargantuan torpedo-shaped head trailing dozens of tentacles as thick as people, and it must have been just inches below the surface to have been visible during the storm, but it let them be, and was soon left behind.  Occasionally a huge purple fin would rise from the spray; it trailed them a while, but eventually grew bored and swam off.

A monolith came into view. Illuminated by flashes of red lightning, the children saw that it was nearly straight, and topped by a massive rounded formation, shaped something like a pear.  The map said it stood on a nameless, uninhabited island, but fires glowed at the center of its top like a pair of red eyes, and as they passed it, they could see it turning, and that it was crowned with massive horns.  Whether it was a gigantic monster or a man-made structure in the guise of one, the children had no desire to learn and sped off, sailing ever northward.

They did not feel the need to eat and rested only slightly.  They never stopped sailing in all the hours they spent at sea.

Eventually Windfall’s lighthouse loomed in the distance, its two beams slicing through the darkness like a sword of light, guiding them on the last stretch of this long journey.  The children welcomed its cleansing light, feeling warmth at the sight of its cheery yellow glow.  As they grew closer, they saw the candlelight and fireplace lights of the town gleaming like fireflies in the storm, and as the great beams swept overhead, they illuminated the rustic fields and the gunpowder store, kept far from the town to avoid accidents.

As they rounded the southern tip of the island, they saw a dreadful sight.  _The Grimdark_ lurked in the water, hidden behind the overhanging cliff where John and Roxy had sheltered so long ago.  The lamps in its monstrous kraken figurehead stared accusingly into the night.  It was like a crocodile, John thought, lying perfectly still in ambush, with nothing but the light of its eyes to give it away.

“Now what?” asked Tavros, wide-eyed at the sight of the evil-looking ship.  The rest of the crew looked equally horrified at the black hulk; only John had ever thought of it as a friendly shelter.

“We land,” said John, “and we try to steal our bombs before the pirates get theirs, or at least clean up whatever they left behind.”

“Volunteering for this mission solo,” said Roxy, her hand shooting straight up.  “I’d rather not have to fight my way through a whole crew of pirates that you kinda sorta think of as friends,” she said.

John nodded.  “It’s better this way.”

They beached Jaspers, dragging him up the sand almost all the way onto a muddy field of flowers while pigs and sheep made angry, wet noises in the distance.  Roxy gave a salute and sped off into the rain, ducking into her run to make herself smaller.  She’d been right, John thought, her blue outfit blended into the storm within a few steps, and she was gone.

 

The room was small and drab, not _clean_ , but shoddily wiped down constantly to give the illusion of cleanliness, and reeked of cordite and sulfur.  No creamy yellow candle glow lit this room, but instead it was brightened by the flickering, stark, colorful light of forest fireflies, imported at great cost, and hung in expensive glass jars from an iron chandelier that swayed slightly as the house was struck by pounding rain.  The walls were of whitewashed stone, though long stained grey near the ceiling by powder and smoke.  This was the bomb seller’s shop, an outpost of the Engineers’ Guild that kept a tight grip on all scientific innovation on the great sea from distant Seline in Calatia.

[Rose loomed over the hapless bomb salesman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gU_54ibyKM).  She would have done so whether she tried to or not; the man was around four feet tall, excluding two odd poffs of hair on either side of his head that added another six inches to his height, and was currently tied up.  However, when Rose chose to, she _loomed_.  There was a whole art to it, a refinement to the exact posture and expression.  What’s more she looked terrifying in her war paint, all black and grey streaks across her face, furry ears pierced with black studs and bone rings, and her wands crackled with black energies that sent shivers up the spine.  The little man wet himself, just slightly.  He thought she didn’t notice, until she shot him The Smirk.  He withered.

“You’re quite fortunate,” she said, Smirk still gleaming malevolently on her face, “that I didn’t turn you into something _unnatural_.”  She strode towards him, stroking the top of his shiny, bald head with the very tip of her weapon.  He flinched as his skin began to smoke. 

“You’ve heard of witches turning people into pigs? Well I am _so much more imaginative_ than your run-of-the-mill green skinnéd hag, grinding mushrooms into potions and flirting with young bravos.  I could turn you into something that had never been seen before, some new monster that’s all eyes and teeth and tentacles, and unleash you on the city.”  She dragged the wand around in a little looping pattern, burning needle-fine trails of skin as she went.  “You would kill scores of them,” she murmured, voice low and soothing, almost sultry, “but then they’d kill you and string you up as a warning, or throw you to the bottom of some pit and seal it off, leaving you to starve, but unable to die, maintained by my eldritch craft.”

“Honestly, I should just gut you and not even bother,” she added in her regular tone of voice.  Rose finished carving; she’d marked his forehead with her symbol, a big, beautiful, looping RL; the flesh around it was livid and swollen, but the mark itself crackled with rainbow fire.  Breathing deeply, the shopkeeper seemed to relax.  She ripped the badge off his chest, the hourglass and stylized “B” of the Engineers’ Guild.  With a tap of her black needle, it crumpled into grey and lifeless dross.  “But there is one thing I despise above all others, and that’s extortion.”  She looked over her shoulder, watching her crew carrying off powder kegs, bombs, and assorted charges by the armload.  “Your guild’s hording has kept this world in a dark age for long enough; it’s time the age of exploration became the age of industry, don’t you think?”  She raised the other wand, crackling black and pink, and thrust it down at the shopkeeper’s head.

A light gasp shook her concentration and she missed.  The ghastly light of her wand burst into sparks just to the right of the shopkeeper’s head, and where they landed spindly arms as fine and short as hairs crept out of the ether.  The man screamed around his gag.

Looking up, Rose saw—

  She was almost certain that there’d been a flash of blue up above the shopkeeper’s desk; there was a little storage area up there, just a tiny loft with cleaning supplies and a moneybox that had no doubt been embezzled from the guild.  Where she looked however, there was nothing.  Naught but shadows.

“As I was saying,” she hisses, glaring down at the little man, who now looked more curious that terrified, “I am going to—”

Something fizzed with power at her hip.  Reaching into the folds of her bright pink sash, she brought out a cracked, dark pink orb.  The pattern that had once rested beneath the surface was now a mess of broken lines…but now it was glowing.  The thing had lost power a few days ago, and the only thing capable of bringing out this last little spark of energy would have been its twin.

 _“Do you think she’s been caught?”_ a whispery voice crackled from the sphere, sounding as broken as the ball’s surface.  It was so quiet she had to strain to hear.

 _“It’s been five minutes,”_ said another voice.  Rose saw the vaguest outline of a face.  It seemed familiar.  _“She’s probably not even—”_ then it cut off as the sphere cracked in two, falling into a pair of solid black halves.  She let them clunk to the floor.

Rose let out a sigh of relief.  John was alive, and he was on Windfall.

Up on the loft, the shadows moved.  There was nothing there, or so her mind told her, refusing to let her eyes look at the spot, trying not to think about why there would be extra shadows just bunched up on the middle of the loft with nothing to cast them.  There was only one thing that could do that, Rose thought, affecting both the mind and reality to hide something in plain view.  Sheikah magic.  John needed to steal some bombs too, and she had an inkling as to why.

“Excuse me, boss?” chirped a soft voice.  Rose spun on her heel, and loomed at the new arrival.  Nepeta was standing right behind her, eyes huge and sparkling like they were when she was asking for something.  The crew usually sent her as its representative when they didn’t want to go through Vriska.

Rose furrowed her brow.  “Yes, ship’s cat?”

Swishing her tail playfully, Nepeta said, “The lads and ladettes were just wondering if maybe we could spend the night here in Windfall?  I know you said you wanted to leave as soon as we had the bombs, but everyone’s tired and hungry.”

“We just ate,” Rose snapped, and just then her stomach rumbled.  The bomb seller looked up at her with the most surreal expression she had ever seen on a person.  Rose growled to herself and with a flick of her wand turned him into a huge pale blue toad.

“We’ve taken every single grain of powder!  This is our most successful raid in a looong time!” Nepeta replied, bringing her fists up to her chin.  “Even if we didn’t go for the treasure, we could make our fortunes just selling off this gunpowder!  We deserve to celebrate!”  She batted her eyelashes.  The bomb shop owner shuffled his way out from the coil of ropes.  He was only half his original size.  He looked at his hands.  They were bright orange.

“The real raid is going to be on Outset Island,” Rose sighed, ears drooping, and stared at her new creation.  The cursed shopkeeper was marveling at his hands.  A tongue snaked out and licked its eye.  Up on the loft, the shadows moved.

Rose bit her lip.  “Just make sure to load up all the bombs.  Tell Jake English ad Pounce to stay behind and guard them.”  Staring intently at the shifting shadows, she added, “Tell Mr. English to set a password, and to let anyone enter who guesses it correctly.  It’s the answer to this riddle.”  She spoke the riddle clearly as the frogman sat down behind his desk and started looking over his ledgers.  Up in the loft, Roxy giggled.

“And when you’ve finished that,” Rose said, arching a painted eyebrow at the loft, “we can hit the café and bar on the northside, and requisition their facilities for the night.”

The pirates erupted into cheers.

 

Jake English sighed, patting the head of the huge white cat sleeping next to him.  Sitting in the dark interior of _The Grimdark_ alone on a three legged stool, an oil lamp swinging from a hook overhead.  He was in the small antechamber just past the only door.  Rose’s room was directly behind him, and a set of stairs led to the cavernous, bigger-on-the-inside hold.  The other pirates had left him behind to go party in the city.  Again.  He really did like his private time, but he was becoming increasingly sure that the other pirates didn’t see him as an equal.

Even Willoughby was treated better than Jake was, and the lying reptile cheated at cards.

“I’m going to strike out on my own!” Jake decided, leaping to his feet, pink ears lying flat against his head.  The stool toppled to the warped black wood and Pounce leapt up screeching, running down the stairs into the hold.  “I’ll get a boat and adventure alone for a few years,” he said as he began pacing, “then, once I’ve done a bit of successful treasure hunting, I’ll buy a ship and begin the process of hiring a crew.”  He tightened the straps on his leather gauntlets, feeling the cold metal beneath press against him.  “Only good blokes, whom I like and am sure like me, people who will be my chums and not desert me to go get drunk on Byrnish coffee and fornicate!”  He slung on his short green coat, the tails flapping dramatically.  “They’ll bring me right along to the fornication and spiked coffees!” he shouted, voice ringing in the small chamber.

He snooped around for his bow and arrows for a minute before the knock came at the door.  At which point he dropped everything and headed cheerily over.  “Good’een chums!” he said through the peephole.  The people outside were hooded and he didn’t recognize them, but that didn’t mean they weren’t crewmates.  It was very dark out after all.

“An assassin’s knife,” said the one in the lead.  He thought she looked a little like Rose, so it must be a test.

“Not so fast,” said Jake, waggling his finger, even though they couldn’t see it.  “I didn’t ask you the riddle yet!”

Someone sighed.  A raspy voice muttered, “Fine, let him ask it, I guess.”

Jake cleared his throat, grinning like a lunatic.

 

_“I am the hard punch and pull of power,_

_Bold thrusting out, keen coming in,_

_Serving my lord. I burrow beneath_

_A belly, tunneling a tight road._

_My lord hurries and heaves from behind_

_With a catch of cloth. Sometimes he drags me_

_Hot from the hole, sometimes shoves me_

_Down the snug road. The southern thruster_

_Urges me on. Say who I am.”_

The people outside the door were dumbstruck.  “Is…this a d-dick!?  Why is the answer to the riddle dicks?”  He gasped, covering his mouth.  Jake thought he could see a hint of a blush.  “ _Holy shit no it’s a turd._ What’s wrong with literally everyone on the Great Sea?”  The raspy voice shouted.  One of the figures, a big horned troll to whom the voice clearly belonged, was hyperventilating.  Jake chuckled.  He didn’t remember that rack.  A new swabbie?

A familiar sigh hit his ears.  “No Tavros the answer is _still a knife_ , it’s a trick, you’re supposed to think of dicks first, okay?”

Jake had begun cackling, though he wasn’t aware of it.

“Ohmigosh,” said the person in the lead who was probably his boss, “just open the door!  We’ve said knife four times now!”  Barely able to restrain himself, Jake opened the door.

The lead girl threw off her hood, revealing herself to not be Jake’s boss by virtue of her perfectly manicured pink hair and ears, and immediately clocked him in the face.

[Or tried to](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw9fX9Z6jK4).  He brought up his arms defensively just in time.  She took another few swings and he deflected them off his forearms with a series of deft rotations of his elbow, suppressing a yawn.

The girl stopped to clutch her fist and whine in pain.  “Merciful Sufferer, what are those arms made of!?” she shouted.  Jake answered by picking her up by the lapels and throwing her out into the rain.

The big horned troll lunged at Jake with an odd wooden spear.  He side-stepped the bow and grabbed the weapon by the shaft.  Pulling hard, he brought the troll crashing into the doorframe; his horns were too wide to let him through.   “Nice rack,” he said with a wink as the troll let out a loud “ow!”  Jake pushed the spear and pulled it back towards him, hitting the troll’s horns against the doorframe again, and again, and once more, leaving the doorframe cracked from the repeated impacts.  Looking like he was about to vomit, the troll dropped to his knees and fell over sideways.

Dropping his stolen spear, Jake stepped out onto the deck.  The girl he’d thrown out had hit the fourth person and they were both lying in jumble now.  The only one left standing was a troll girl, rustblood, dressed in all in red, with a red leather coat.  She was giggling like a demon, her eyes wide, pupils dilating and contracting rapidly, filling with random flashes of color.  “I’m sorry you guys,” she said as her hair caught fire.  The floor beneath her began to crack.  Huge splinters of wood tore themselves out, leveling themselves at Jake like arrows.  “Really!  I—”

Jake cleared the distance between himself and the girl, jumping over the prone troll, and brought his hands together in a clap on both the girl’s cheeks.  The loud, solid _*pap*_ rang out in the night.  The girl coughed like she’d had the wind knocked out of her.  A few drops of red spittle splattered on Jake’s cheek, then the troll girl fell over with a smile on her face.

Jake stepped over her and approached the pile of what he assumed were Hylians.  “Well lads, that was a good scrum, I admit,” he said, punching his fists together.  A metallic hum hung in the air like the sound of a distant gong.  “But I believe it’s time for me to pitch you overboard for the gyorgs!  Say hello to Lanayru for me, she keeps the souls of the drowned, you know.”

He reached down to grab one of them, and then stopped, smile freezing on his face, changing over the course of a few muscle movements into a horrified grimace.  “We’ll I’ll be blown!  Zounds, it’s my old swabbie John Egbert!”

 

“I’m so tired of being captured,” said Jade, lying on the straw palette in her cell.  It had just been replaced a few nights ago and was still pretty dry.  She was cradling her arm, which she’d sprained trying to escape, and Jane was sitting next to her, cradling Jade’s head in her lap, caressing her wounded arm.

Outside loomed their captor, a Darknut in black and gold armor.  Fascinating creatures, Jade thought, not as hideous as the other monsters that Caliborn had created.  They were like huge, strong men, with sleek short black fur all over, and the heads of Dobermans.  This one was easily seven feet tall, with hands like dinner plates.  A bit of vapor puffed from the vent in his faceplate; he looked like a steam kettle.  She could see the powerful, black nose behind it, nostrils expanding and contracting as it breathed.

That was the creature that had hurt her arm.  Jade was already coming up with plans to kill it.  Light a fire up its nose? Maybe.  Her arm twinged.  Maybe tomorrow.

“Tell me about Greatfish Island again,” she said, wincing at her arm pain.  Her soft white ears hung limp, as if they were mere rags with no substance, no life.

Jane sighed, the folded tips of her own ears twitching.  “Well missy, I don’t think there’s anything I can tell you that I haven’t told you already.”  She started talking anyway.  Jane used to ask about Jade’s home, but she could tell that answering just made her sad.  The poor boy who’d broken in all those weeks ago, John, had been Jade’s brother, and another boy who’d helped him had been Jade’s boyfriend.  Neither of them had made it.  Every memory that Jade had of Outset was with one of the two, often both, and so she talking about home brought tears to her eyes.  She always finished talking, seemingly glad to bear her pains, but eventually Jane stopped asking.  It was too much.

“The spice market’s fabulous and we have traders coming around from all over the West Sea.  My house was a big fancy two story place that overlooked it, right across from the mayoral palace with its big showy clock tower.  Dad never really let me go out and explore, always tagging along, practically holding my hand, bringing guards along.  The life of an heiress is stifling, let me tell you!”  Jane bit her lip, looking out the window.  There were metal bars bolted deeply into the stone now, so thick she could barely see out.  “Gosh, there were days when I thought I wanted to leave the island and never come back, but now I just want to go back and tell Dad that I want nothing more but to stay in his house forever.”

Jade laughed.  “You’d let people in though?  So I could come visit you?”

Jane smiled.  “That’s right, and Roxy too!  If we can ever find her out there in the wide world.”  The older girl squinted at a distant star, and wished with all her heart that someday her cellmates turned friends would be able to come over and have a slice of spiced rum cake with her, these dark days far behind them.

All this while, something had been descending the stairs, a hooded figure in orange and green so dark it was almost black.  His voluminous sleeves unfurled like wings, the creature floated just above the ground, never touching the steps.  Soon, he came into view on the other side of the wooden cage, and the girls startled, Jade sitting bolt upright and smacking Jane on the chin.  The man had the face of a toucan, and eyes of gleaming metal.

The wizzrobe waved its wand and Jade froze, seemingly held in place by a dozen red gears floating in midair.  With another wave, Jane was forced to her feet, back ramrod straight.  Her eyes were tearing up and a bit of blood dribbled down her mouth from where Jade had made her bite her tongue.  A sickening realization filled her gut; _she was out of time._

Jade had been a great help since her imprisonment.  Roxy was a fine friend, but the girl’s dependence on alcohol had been draining.  Jane was over the moon with happiness that she’d managed to escape, but the truth was that Roxy had brought her down.  Jade had fortified her, and they’d kept each other sane during the long hours filled with the unhealthy cocktail of boredom and terror.  They’d come up with schemes to escape, none successful, each bringing about a change to their prison, making it harder and harder, but there was always hope.  The younger girl buried her fear and her depression and smiled, and it made Jane smile too.  They bonded over time, and they lost track of time.  Now time was up.  Jane would be flung from the tower, and Jade would be all alone.

Jane’s legs began to shuffle towards the now-open door, stiffly as a doll with no knee-joints.  She wanted to spit out her mouthful of blood and shout, not curses or threats, but reassurances to Jade, that she loved her like a sister and that help would come, that Jade would not meet the same fate as so many other girls.  But the clockwork magicks ticked away inside her bones, and she was deprived of this final act of mercy.

She was forced up the stairs, ugly irregular things that were half melted into a ramp in places, and out onto the roof of the tower.  And icy squall hit her square in the chest and almost sent her flying, but the beak-faced monster held her steady.  _Why?_ She wondered.  He was only going to toss her off in a minute or two.

The ocean around the fortress was boiling and thrashing, throwing up sprays of water that gleamed like silver in the light of the spotlights.  Off in the distance, red and violet lightning crashed down into the ocean.  High above, the clouds swirled and boiled, as if being sucked down some cosmic drain.

The wizzrobe led her up a soaring path, to the highest point of the Forsaken Fortress.  Half a mighty galleon had been lodged up here, either by a monstrous storm or more likely, by the terrible magicks of the lord of the fortress.  The doorway was marked with bones and shields and red paint—no, it was blood.  A huge, grinning face painted in blood, wedge-shaped, with squares for teeth and sideways eyes.  She knew what it was, an ancient symbol out here in the islands, the face of the all-devouring serpent that had drowned with old Hylia.

The doors opened, and she was brought face to face with a nightmare.

“Hey there cookietits,” he grumbled.  Caliborn’s voice was low and crackled like a log on the fire.  He sounded like an avalanche, and just listening to him made the throat tighten in sympathetic pain.  “Wow.  Fuck.  No need to go to the hospital.  Because you are fiiiine.”

Jane was shocked as she watched the hideous green skull leer at her with eyes that flashed a dozen mismatched colors.  This was not what she had expected.

“Really though,” he continued, with his chronic smoker’s voice, “Those are tits.  Like what they write songs about.  _The Legend of Jane: Oracle of Dem Tiddies.”_   He walked across the room towards her on clawed feet—no, one foot, the other was a peg leg done in gold, tipped with an emerald as big as an egg.  He needed to use a walking stick, a huge staff tipped with a green crystal bigger than Jane’s head, the inside a mass of swirling green energies.

The monster of legend whistled at her as it passed behind.  She could feel its horrible eldritch eyes on her ass.  “What the _fuck?”_ she shouted, stamping her feet and not even realizing that she was free of the physical control.  _“I am fourteen years old you primitive ape!”_   She covered her chest with crossed arms, eyes closed.

“Hey. If you got it. Flaunt it.”  A cold, hard, hand the texture of leather stretched tight over granite seized her by the back of the neck, and she was carried inwards like a kitten in the jaws of its mother.  Or the jaws of the neighbor’s tomcat that didn’t want to raise some other cat’s children.  “Age is just a number.  And statutory is a kink.  Listen.  You have something that I want.  And it’s not your bod.  Bodacious though it be.”

Jane almost heaved a sigh of relief, but then remembered that he was still going to throw her off the tower.  She was plopped down onto a very comfortable chair.  Opening her eyes, Jane saw that she was in the middle of a huge plush armchair with red velvet cushions.  Across from her, Caliborn dropped himself into an equally plush loveseat that was still barely enough to hold him.  Between them there was an antique globe.  It had been tagged up with crude drawings in red ink, and had been burned with cigars.

“The Triforce did not resonate for you,” he said, raising a meaty fist.  A tattoo made up of golden triangles gleamed on the back of it; [one of them was so bright it seemed to glow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEI_jZ4jiOU).  “Normally.  This is grounds to have you killed.  In a way that I find amusing.  Watching you pop against the rocks of my island.  And be eaten by crabs on the beach. Or hungry goblins inside the walls. Or fall into the sea. And disappear. Sometimes I find the bones. And I keep them. I don’t try to aim for a particular ending,” he elaborated with a bourgeois twirl of his clawed hand, “I just toss the bitches.  And let fate decide.”

Jane remembered the skulls and crossed bones outside and wanted to cry again, but she was listening.  If there was something preventing him from killing her, then she would need to exploit it in order to keep on living.  “There are others,” he went on, in his slow, halting tone.  It sounded more dreadful than the smooth, oily voice she’d imagined when she first came here.  “Other powers than the Triforce.  The Oracles are one power.  Three women.  One man.  They have the power of Time.  Seasons.  Secrets.  Love.  Stupid beautiful quims.  That I hate.”  He growled deep in his chest, and it sounded like a stone tiger purring as it licked the blood off its jaws.

“There are also the sages,” he went on.  “There are usually ten.  Seven protected Hyrule.  The other three also did.  But in a different way.  The seven kept bad shit like me away.  The three gave blessings and made shit stronger.  Unlike Oracles.  Sages need to be awakened.  Told what they are.  Before they can be useful.”  He grinned, though being a skull this was more or less a default expression.  He rubbed his golden tusk.  “I have two of their souls.  Trapped in purgatory.  It’s good shit.  Their descendants can’t awaken.  Until they pass on.  But I never found the third.  She slipped away.  And opened her legs.  And sprayed out a line of babies.  That lasted to this day.”

He stood up, looming to his full height.  “And you’re the last one.  Cookietits.  The Ocean Sage.”

Jane fell forward off the chair and onto the sumptuously carpeted floor.  It felt like she was being split in half at the belly.  His words made sense, and she had a horrifying vision of her entire line going back to ancient times, starting with a woman who looked just like her emerging from the sea.  She’d always felt like the ocean was a womb, that it couldn’t hurt her despite what her dad might’ve told about sea monsters and whirlpools, what she saw of yearly hurricanes.  And the revelation was cutting her in half.

An old song came to her and she grabbed a hold of it, trying to sing, to distract from the pain as her insides turned to water.  It came out like a wet hiss, but the words were clear in her mind.

 

_One day I was walking, I heard a complaining_

_And saw an old woman the picture of gloom_

_She gazed at the mud on her doorstep ('twas raining)_

_And this was her song as she wielded her broom._

_Oh, life is a toil and love is a trouble,_

_Beauty will fade and riches will flee_

_Pleasures they dwindle and prices they double_

_And nothing is as I would wish it to be._

 

“Here,” said Caliborn, picking her up by the head, clutched in one had like an egg, “while you’re vulnerable during your transformation.  Let me show you a thing.”

He raised his rod.  The swirling clouds of green and gold consolidated themselves into forms.  Her beautiful island.  Greatfish, shaped like the slumbering form of Lady Cetus beneath.

A storm formed above it, angry, swirling, like the louds were being sucked down some cosmic drain.

 

_Last night in my dreams I was stationed forever_

_On a far little rock in the midst of the sea_

_My one chance of life was a ceaseless endeavor_

_To sweep off the waves as they swept over me._

 

Red and violet lightning thundered down from the storm, like a hail of bloody arrows.  The bolts plunged through buildings, lighting them on fire, plunging through earth and sending up sprays of dirt and stone, daggers stabbing the earth rather than natural lightning.  The earth bled water as they stabbed all the way down into the submerged caves at the base of the island.  The earth bled blood as it stabbed Cetus in her dreams.

Her beautiful house was tattered to smithereens, she saw—

 

_Alas, 'twas no dream; ahead I behold it,_

_I see I am helpless my fate to avert._

 

 

Blown apart to flaming debris.  Her father wasn’t there though; he was running, shouting through the streets, directing citizens, taking control, tending to the wounded—

The earth opened up as Cetus breached, screaming in agony, her face— _her face like nothing else in heaven and earth_ , bloodied and screaming and full or dirt and rock and foam.  She thrashed and thrashed and Greatfish _shattered—_

Just like Jane’s heart.  The pain in her stomach was over.

 

_She lay down her broom, her apron she folded,_

_She lay down and died and was buried in dirt._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It finally fucking happened; I wrote a note too long for Ao3 to handle. [There's a funny story about the writing of this chapter in this link.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/16nR6M3rlQLRnvMx2UoV3jZkHL5U2OpLoCBxrgXRV3f4/edit?usp=sharing)
> 
> The Engineer’s Guild is descended from the Bombers from Majora’s Mask. They monopolize the world’s high technology and prevent the Great Sea from entering the industrial age so maintain Calatia’s power. Rose breaking their monopoly by stealing bombs brings about the technological revolution that exists by the time of Spirit Tracks.
> 
> I have been building up to the end of this chapter for a while, but it was not originally endgame. However, Jake being surprisingly badass was always gonna be a thing.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Legend of Rose: Skyward Sniper](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3485264) by [HowlingArmadillo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HowlingArmadillo/pseuds/HowlingArmadillo)
  * [The Legend of Rose: Bass of Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5922703) by [Hammermaster02](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hammermaster02/pseuds/Hammermaster02)




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